Think I've broken it?

[Surrey Sam]

Only had it 26 days and driven 2300 miles

Today, I've now established that I have an audible whine coming from the transmission under load, but not when I'm off throttle coasting. Appears at motorway speeds from about 60ish mph. Not entirely sure but the downwards gear changes may also be not as smooth, as when I first picked it up. Car has only just clocked 4500 miles from new.

Shall take it into Audi next week but imagine the prognosis will be a new gearbox - which will be under warranty thankfully!

[MikeFish]

Oh dear, hope it's covered and it is not off the road for too long!

[RIV]

Do you notice any play when backing off the throttle then back on again Sam?

[Surrey Sam]

Yes mate, not much but even in comfort there's a tiny bit of slack on pick up which can't be the throttle map. It takes turning the radio up to around 15, before I can no longer hear the whine at its loudest. Yet bumbling around town it doesn't feel/sound any different.

[RIV]

Surley the play in the drive train isn't normal?
Is there any adjustment to stop that? Audi seems to think it's ok

[rspj]

Oh my God hope it's get done soon don't sound good

[TobyRS4]

I feel your pain on gearboxes at the minute, thankfully dealer can sort quickly for you Sam!

[Surrey Sam]

Thanks Toby, yes I though chocolate gearboxes were the RS6's speciality. I feel for you with no warranty to fall back onto though, it’s one of the reasons why I was looking for a approved used B8. As I could then shake out any gremlins with some peace of mind, just didn't expect trouble this soon though.

Riv - I'm not au fait with the dual clutch transmissions on modern cars but there will always be some engineered tolerance within the drivetrain, otherwise you'd get noises and vibrations from everyday driving. The use of rubber mountings does this job, so it may be worth replacing the transmission mount and perhaps use the 034 motorsport insert, to see if that helps/alleviates the slack. I don't think driving around with the Engine/Gearbox in Dynamic all the time helps the bushes as the throttle pickup is quite hard on the system. To be honest, I've found Auto to be surprisingly sufficient for the top 3 Drive Select options.

I gave mine a clean this morning and took it out again to see how easy it is to replicate, the transmission shunt is very intermittent. However, mine is whining more than a women who got it in the wrong hole at anything over 60mph

So straight back home and have now phoned Audi Roadside assistance - someone will be out in a couple of hours to cast their eye over it but I'm not expecting much. Just starting to get the ball rolling as they should in theory, organise a hire car for me whilst it's recovered to the dealership for further assessment.

[Noyjatat]

Not good buddy. It may be someone was showing the launch control in the past too much. I think most people wouldn't give it the minimum 7 minutes between runs and it is brutal on the car and transmission.

[Surrey Sam]

Not good buddy. It may be someone was showing the launch control in the past too much. I think most people wouldn't give it the minimum 7 minutes between runs and it is brutal on the car and transmission.

First thing I did when it arrived Gaz, was to check how many launch's it had recorded via VCDS and non have been logged. I thought there may have been one or two in there, but then again, I've not tried out the feature because like you say it's not kind to the car.

Audi (VAG) Roadside assistance have been out and I took the guy out for a short drive, he agreed with me that there is a noise present and thinks possibly it could be the differential rather than gearbox? Not sure on that, but it's going into my local dealer tomorrow and his findings have been recorded with Audi UK.

I guess that I shall not be seeing the car for a couple of weeks now, whilst this all sorts itself out. Poor car

[Noyjatat]

Fair one buddy. Be interesting to see the final result once they find it buddy. Warranty for the win

[Sammyb349]

What else can you ascertain from the VCDS Sam? I was told by the dealer that nothing like that is recorded. I know Porsche record % time in certain rev ranges etc.

If you can get that info, I'd be very interested in getting hold of the VCDS reader.

[Surrey Sam]

Car is now with my local dealership. The Master Tech is back tomorrow but it probably won't get started on until the later end of the week, as they're very busy/booked up. I'll update the thread as and when I get any news.

Sam - I've not done too much exploring around the modules yet, but this screen shot below is what I found for the Launch Control counter and a few other bits of interest on my own car. I don't really want to pop its cherry to test if the counter works. Perhaps someone else can have a go on their car?

click image to enlarge:

[MikeFish]

Interesting that it logs how much time you spend driving in each mode too. I wonder if Audi would use this to counter a claim for a car with a high percentage of Sport usage.

[Surrey Sam]

A cynic would say so Mike.

I personally think it's more to help product improvement, should there be a trend of component failures. Data is really useful for those scenarios and I imagine that Audi UK/Audi AG will be asking the Dealership for certain data to be pulled from my car; in this case for both diagnosing the fault and to store in their data bank. The VAG Roadside Assistance chap hadn't seen a fault like this in an RS4 before and mentioned the only similar thing he'd seen, was a C7 RS6 which had a thumping gear change from 3rd to 2nd. He made me chuckle though when he first turned up, as he shoved his hand under the arch to feel the tyre tread depth - I smiled and said "it's definitely not a tyre roar noise".