help..overheating

[RS6 Mugello]

Was driving along in London stop start traffic and temperature gauge was at 90 and slowly climbed up and the warning light came on. Took it to the garage and they could find no leak and the diagnostics did not come up with anything.

They have tried the car yesterday and today and no problems, but after 15 minutes of being at 90 it slowly climbed and warning light came on....so water pump or thermostat or something else? After stopping the car the fan was doing overtime for 15 minutes.

Am due at MRC in two weeks but car wont get there.

Thanks

James

[pete2144]

Sounds like the dreaded thermostat!

[RS6 Mugello]

So thermostat...any idea on cost?

Thanks

[el_ringo]

Audi will quote about a grand. If you are due a cambelt change then do that at the same time together with the waterpump to save the pennies.

[MartynC]

Make sure BOTH fans are running.....the cooling system is not simple (what is on a 6?). Mines a Plus but I think the standard 6 has 2 fans also, could simply be a sensor fault, I understand it is fairly common.

Good Luck, MartynC

[aRSy]

it will be water pump, mine just went with the same symptoms. I got the thermostat, cambelt and oil gasket seal replaced at the same time.

[spurtle]

The fans should be obvious (open the bonnet and look). If they're both working then it could be the thermostat or the coolant pump. Both are common failures on this and seemingly any other fast Audi.

The parts aren't expensive (thermostat about £15, coolant pump around £80) but the front of the car needs to come off to replace them, same as for the cam belt - so the best part of a day's labour.

If you can get this diagnosed, probably best just to swallow the expense and get both parts and the cam belt replaced. I didn't bother replacing the water pump on a previous car and it failed after 1500 miles so I had to pay twice.

MRC and Unit 20 do hundreds of these and will be half the cost of most Audi dealers (and likely to do a better job than an independent). If it was me I'd try to get it to MRC at night with windows open and the heaters at 100% - might require a few long coffee stops to get the temperature down but unless something has failed horribly it should go 40 miles at a stretch.

Sorry, this is just one of the costs of owning these cars

[posterboyj]

waterpump

[grizz]

Thermostat , Never had a water pump fail in this way ..