Brand new Audi RS6 C8 (2023) Sport Differential Fault - DAY 1

[beastvan]

Today (after waiting over a year) I went to go pick up my brand new Audi RS6. I took delivery of the car. Everything looked good, all the paperwork was signed, and I left the dealership to take the car back home. 35 km on the odometer at this point.

I left the dealership in RS2 mode, because the salesman was showing me how to open the valves on the exhaust. Barely touching the throttle I eased my way out of the dealership, took a left hand turn and way before reaching even the first traffic light (less than 40 meters), the car displayed a warning "Sport differential: fault. Please contact workshop"... great. The car didn't even make it to the first traffic light. I do a U-turn before the light and take it straight back to the dealership. I turn off the engine and I find the salesman that took care of me during the delivery. Salesman goes and gets a mechanic. After turning the car on again, the error code is gone, but we take it to the mechanic who turns out to be their main diagnostics guy as well. They put the car on a lift and check the underside of the car, read the codes, and check the sports differential. The diagnostic software called for the issue to be either A) Due to excessive wear caused by overloading the diff with aggressive driving or B) A harness/cable issue. The diagnostic guy said, the code is not present at the moment (since turning the car on again), so he will just clear the code from the car's memory (as there are no cable issues).

Meanwhile the salesman confesses: "oh by the way, when I took it out to put a few liters of fuel in the car for you earlier, it gave me this same code, so we checked it out with a different mechanic guy and he said a delivery service step was improperly done and that is what caused the error, so we just reset it." I was unaware of this up until this point... great. So the mechanic/diagnostic guy says everything should be fine from here on out. I tell both the mechanic and the salesman that I want my delivery documentation to include both the fact that the salesman already had this code once and that I got it 40 meters into owning this car... we amend the delivery documents and I get a printed sheet of the diagnostics.

Thinking all should be good from here on, I leave the dealership to go get the car fueled. At this point the car has 60km worth of fuel in it.The drive to the nearest gas station was around 2.5 km away. No issues and I believe I selected RS2 mode, just to test under the same conditions, but drove it as easy as possible - very very light throttle inputs (due to the break-in period). After fueling the car, it was time to head back home, so I headed for the highway. In approximately 4 kms, just after a roundabout the car displays a warning message: "Sport differential: fault. Please contact workshop". Because I just entered a closed 2 lane highway entry road, I had to take a longer route back to the dealership (approx. 7.5km) while driving 30 km/h - changed it to comfort mode (the car did not enter limp mode, but I wanted to be safe by putting as little stress on the main components as possible). There was no noise, no rubbing sounds, no detectable handling changes either. However, the error code was still there. I call the dealership, this is past 5 PM, so EVERYONE is gone. They tell me well, they can't do anything about it now, so I would have to leave the car there at the dealership and we would deal with it tomorrow. Great delivery experience to say the least.

So now my (100K+ EUR brand new) car is sat on the the lot with 49 KMs on the odometer with some Sports differential fault. Within this 49 kms the car has presented the same issue 3 times already.

Going back tomorrow and trying to figure out next steps. Any tips or experience would be greatly appreciated!

Car is Europe-spec. The car is in Hungary.

I plan on posting updates about this issue.

[beastvan]

Day 2

Went back today to dealership to figure out what was wrong with the car. Diagnostics were ran on the car again and the car was placed on a lift. The diagnostics seemed to return the same wiring issue and then also an oil pressure inconsistency issue. So, the decision was made that we should start eliminating potential faults: starting with the wiring itself, then the computer that controls the differential, then the sensors, and finally the differential pump itself. The wiring was checked from underneath the car, it seemed fine, but then the whole cable run had to checked. To do this, the entire cargo area had to be torn open to reveal the differential computer and the end of the wire harness. The wires were all checked and everything was as it should be. The wires were out of the question. After further diagnostics, it was established that both relevant sensors were sending data to the computer and the computer was executing the necessary commands towards the pump itself; therefore, the computer was also deemed as being in order.

The next step is changing the differential pump and differential oil. Parts will arrive over the weekend. Will be updating early next week.

Wish me luck.

[Michael_JCWS]

Can’t you reject it?

[stuartbarriskell]

Wow, sorry to hear this.

In the UK, if you're not happy, you can return the car as not fit for purpose legally, as in there are consumer laws, but that will be the last thing on your mind, having waited that long for it..

It will knock your confidence in the car too..hmmmm 100k plus, personally I'd reject it and order another or have them source one...

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[beastvan]

Wow, sorry to hear this.

In the UK, if you're not happy, you can return the car as not fit for purpose legally, as in there are consumer laws, but that will be the last thing on your mind, having waited that long for it..

It will knock your confidence in the car too..hmmmm 100k plus, personally I'd reject it and order another or have them source one...

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In an ideal world that is what I would do. But the wait times are still over a year now. Also, I bought the vehicle under a company and that basically tosses out most your consumer protection rights in Hungary.

They showed me the logs on when they took the car out of transport-mode (when speed is limited to 20-ish km/h and the transmission will not go above 2nd gear). This happened when the car had 32km on the clock. I took delivery at 35km. So I doubt there was any foul play with the car.

[Astonished]

Definitely unlucky
I was doing some rural driving, only 80km/hr at that stage, one car directly in front of me (about 4 to 6 car lengths ahead) and a slow dirt truck about 5 - 7 car lengths in front of that car.
A stone or lump of dirt about 30mm square flicked up off the back of the truck. I saw it bounce along the road side for a bit and then turn towards me, nipped under the car about half way along, made a bit of a sound, twice, hitting the under carriage (not serious but I heard it) … the system then gave me the same same Sport differential error message. I had wondered whether it had pinged the diff, but more like it sounded hitting the inside of a brake dust boot or other “free metal”. I drove a bit further with it not self correcting, so stopped, turned off. Restarted - never returned. At that stage I’d done about 13,000kms - now done about 18,000 kms.

I mentioned to the dealer at my 15,000kms service, who are really good and said that they do experience some frustrating messages like that from time to time, but all seem to self correct.

Doesn’t solve your problem, but gives it a context.

Oh yeh - absolutely no change in drive experience then or since. Loving it

[stuartbarriskell]

Wow, sorry to hear this.

In the UK, if you're not happy, you can return the car as not fit for purpose legally, as in there are consumer laws, but that will be the last thing on your mind, having waited that long for it..

It will knock your confidence in the car too..hmmmm 100k plus, personally I'd reject it and order another or have them source one...

Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk

In an ideal world that is what I would do. But the wait times are still over a year now. Also, I bought the vehicle under a company and that basically tosses out most your consumer protection rights in Hungary.

They showed me the logs on when they took the car out of transport-mode (when speed is limited to 20-ish km/h and the transmission will not go above 2nd gear). This happened when the car had 32km on the clock. I took delivery at 35km. So I doubt there was any foul play with the car.

I can appreciate your frustration right now.. to look at it positively, the car is brand new, its Audi's responsibility to rectify whatever the problem is, even if its a replacement whatever leave the car with them but demand a courtesy car at the same level if no 6, take an RS4 or higher end equivalent..I sure as <beep> would demand that (in the nicest way possible of course).. no point in alienating anyone, hopefully the SM sees your side of it.

You've just paid for one of the more expensive vehicles in their whole range and should be treated accordingly makes sense to me...

Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk

[beastvan]

Wow, sorry to hear this.

In the UK, if you're not happy, you can return the car as not fit for purpose legally, as in there are consumer laws, but that will be the last thing on your mind, having waited that long for it..

It will knock your confidence in the car too..hmmmm 100k plus, personally I'd reject it and order another or have them source one...

Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk

In an ideal world that is what I would do. But the wait times are still over a year now. Also, I bought the vehicle under a company and that basically tosses out most your consumer protection rights in Hungary.

They showed me the logs on when they took the car out of transport-mode (when speed is limited to 20-ish km/h and the transmission will not go above 2nd gear). This happened when the car had 32km on the clock. I took delivery at 35km. So I doubt there was any foul play with the car.

I can appreciate your frustration right now.. to look at it positively, the car is brand new, its Audi's responsibility to rectify whatever the problem is, even if its a replacement whatever leave the car with them but demand a courtesy car at the same level if no 6, take an RS4 or higher end equivalent..I sure as <beep> would demand that (in the nicest way possible of course).. no point in alienating anyone, hopefully the SM sees your side of it.

You've just paid for one of the more expensive vehicles in their whole range and should be treated accordingly makes sense to me...

Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk

Trying to stay as positive as possible. Right now I got a Cupra as a courtesy car. 150 hp beast (1.5 liter turbo, automatic). They don't have any performance Audi models that they can give me as a loaner right now.

[beastvan]

So today, I got to the dealership around 11:30. The plan was to change both sensors, the oil pump, and the oil for the sport differential. The factory oil was clean as it could be - no sign of any contamination or foreign debris. Turns out, you can only change the sensors 1-by-1 otherwise, some calibration will get messed up. So we first tried changing the upper sensor, which is the black plug sensor. This alone and changing the pump and the oil didn't resolve the issue, so they we ahead and changed the second brown connector sensor as well.

Unfortunately, this didn't resolve the problem either. When running the diagnostics, it seems that the sport differential test will fail at first, but past consistently on the second try. The initial failure also comes along with pressures around 1.5 bar on each sensor, while the second test results in pressures around 40+ bar (which is what it would need).

Air was removed from the system during all phases; however, right now the car wants the diagnostics to run a basic test, which the car is unable to complete at this point. Therefore, the sport differential code cannot be erased from the vehicle.

Tomorrow, they will be changing the actuators (both of them) of the sport differential. They have submitted logs and requests towards the factory, so that they can assist with handling the issue.

I am still driving a Cupra for the time being. I am getting very inpatient and so far the cargo area in the interior had to be disassembled, the exhaust had to be lowered, and most elements of the sport differential had to be dissembled as well. Not happy about all the work that has to be done on this "new" car. Also, the diagnostics called for the engine to be shutdown and restarted at least 2 dozen times, which is not the most ideal for a 50km engine.

[beastvan]

Today, I finally drove away with the RS6. The actuators were changed and that immediately resolved all the issues relating to Sport Differential Fault.

So the tl;dr: If there is a Sport Differential issue, start with changing the actuators, even if the diagnostic says its a pump, cabling, or sensor issue. One of the mechanics said that this issue was present in a S8 and another RS6 as well and in both those other cases it was also the actuators.


Of course the oil had to be replenished in the differential and a basic setup had to be ran on the car. Where the rear tires had to be lifted off the ground, so that the differential could be spun (by hand on just the one side). This was needed for some calibration. Then we went on a 67 km test drive including many roundabouts, twist, crappy roads, highway driving as well. All is well. Then I drove the car another 80km today since then. The car is in working order...

This is definitely a story. Also, while the idea was there to order another car to replace this one. It turns out that Audi has halted taking orders on the RS6 as of today. So that option was no longer available.

[stuartbarriskell]

Good result mate, as long as you are happy with it.. time to enjoy the car now !

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[morski]

Good result and a fast one. Ive repaired a sport diff fault on an S8 and its pain in the butt trying to get it adapt/ basic settings correctly. Too many variables! Good result so enjoy it.

[beastvan]

All is good. No issues. The car is amazing. Can't wait to be done with the 1500 km break-in period. I am at 400 km right now

[Tadass910]

It’s really strange how issues can appear after 1 day purchase