Audi A6 - automatic - questions

Truckermal · 06-08-2020 5:52pm

Get rid now I'll give you 2k seeing as you are a fellow Boardsie..

kermitpwee · 06-08-2020 11:10pm

wonski wrote: »

If it cost 1k to make it good now I wouldn't call it a lemon. If it is irreparable or something then it is.

I would only do the essential job now to see if it makes it right.

Then tires etc, unless they are in dangerous condition of course.

If one wanted an A6 bringing Toyota into the topic is rather silly

Sure Fabia would be even cheaper and easier to maintain, likely as well equipped as the Toyota

I brought in the Toyota remark at the start of the thread to explain that an Audi A6 would cost more to maintain than a Toyota as the op was worried about running costs, not sure why you brought in the Skoda Fabia when your telling me that it was silly to bring in the Toyota to the thréad.
Anyway 9 times out of 10 changing the gearbox oil will not solve the problem. The autobox on that model A6 are also known to be piss poor.
The car is a poor investment, you can smile and wink all you want, all the evidence points to the car being a lemon.
Good luck to the op, hope the oil change works out for you

wonski · 07-08-2020 9:27am

kermitpwee wrote: »

I brought in the Toyota remark at the start of the thread to explain that an Audi A6 would cost more to maintain than a Toyota as the op was worried about running costs, not sure why you brought in the Skoda Fabia when your telling me that it was silly to bring in the Toyota to the thréad.
Anyway 9 times out of 10 changing the gearbox oil will not solve the problem. The autobox on that model A6 are also known to be piss poor.
The car is a poor investment, you can smile and wink all you want, all the evidence points to the car being a lemon.
Good luck to the op, hope the oil change works out for you

It's the punctuation, or a lack of it in your post that caused the confusion.

You started with "Lovely cars, not"
And then about Toyota. Now when I read it again it sounds more helpful and makes sense.

kermitpwee · 07-08-2020 10:23am

wonski wrote: »

It's the punctuation, or a lack of it in your post that caused the confusion.

You started with "Lovely cars, not"
And then about Toyota. Now when I read it again it sounds more helpful and makes sense.

Yes my punctuation was perfect I said Lovely cars, not a Toyota corolla that can be run on a shoe string budget.
Lovely cars refers to the Audi A6. I then had a comma and said not a Toyota.
It's all very clear.
Anyway good luck to the op.

chops018 · 07-08-2020 10:35am

Thanks all. Gonna ring my mechanic later. I will more than likely follow Colm's advice (and all who agreed with him) and tell the mechanic to just change the gearbox oil and sell it on. I'll advertise it for €2,800 and hopefully get €2,500 and I won't have really lost out then.

cpoh1 · 07-08-2020 1:20pm

Im genuinely confused.

Why would you sell it once the gearbox is sorted with an oil change? All it then needs are discs/pads and aircon regas which are standard wear and tear items.

To be fair to the A6, i think the problem is that you picked the wrong type of car and not the car itself. A 10-12 year old high end saloon will always need money put into it and cost more to maintain than something more basic. Why would you even have an expectation that a car costing 1800 quid and over 10 years old would be completely trouble free?

wonski · 07-08-2020 1:27pm

If you plan on selling it regardless of the result of the oil change then I am confused, too.

What is the point then?

If the oil change does work then you only have minor issues like brake pads and discs.

You can even leave the aircon alone as well and do it later. Not sure how correct the diagnosis on it was, too.

Also the price of pads and discs looks a bit optimistic. 120 in total? That's very cheap...

chops018 · 07-08-2020 1:54pm

cpoh1 wrote: »

Im genuinely confused.

Why would you sell it once the gearbox is sorted with an oil change? All it then needs are discs/pads and aircon regas which are standard wear and tear items.

To be fair to the A6, i think the problem is that you picked the wrong type of car and not the car itself. A 10-12 year old high end saloon will always need money put into it and cost more to maintain than something more basic. Why would you even have an expectation that a car costing 1800 quid and over 10 years old would be completely trouble free?

Sorry, am genuinely not trying to annoy anyone. My head is just melted with the car, I checked it out twice before buying it and it seemed running great and I thought I got a bargain. When saw the caliper was stuck after I bought it the mechanic checked it out and even said the car seems running great and should be sorted with a new caliper and service but then the issues just seemed to keep adding up.

I always have bought cars 8-12 years old for around €2k, and tried to get 1-3 years out them without massive repairs beyond normal maintenance such as a service, tryes etc. and maybe sort one or two big jobs if I've had the car a good while.

An example of some of the cars I've had over the last 10 years (I'm driving 15 years, but had smaller cars for the first 5, bar a Honda Accord which my dad gave me) which gave me very little trouble, or at least I got a couple of years out of them before they did and I just moved on:

- 2001 BMW.
- Saab 93.
- 2006 Audi A3.
- 2004 BMW.
- 2007 BMW.
- 2007 Audi A4.

I've always gone for 2 litre saloon BMW or Audi's and they've usually served me well. I had a Saab inbetween which was a gorgeous car with nothing wrong but I just didn't like driving it at all so I sold it after a couple of months. This seems the first one I've gotten and it's quite a lot of work to be done straight off the bat.

chops018 · 09-08-2020 2:51pm

Hope I'm not annoying anyone updating this thread.

Mechanic got back with full prices:

€550 for discs and pads, wipers, wheel bearing, a/c switch and gas. He has to get price for gear oil Monday. He said the tyres are ok for another while.

I told him once he gets price for gear oil I'll make my decision but I might just do what has been suggested on this thread and get him to just do the gear oil. Then, drive it for a couple of months and get the other stuff sorted then if it seems to be going ok otherwise.

I presume when he put it on the ramp and also scanned it he literally just listed out all the issues that came up to have it sorted 100%.

If that's the case then it is looking like the car will be around €3,000 total to have fully sorted (presuming nothing else goes wrong then!), which is what it looks like is the average price for an auto A6 from 2008.

If I can get around €1000 for my old A4 and the A6 is fixed up and drives well for around a year without the need for anything then I would be happy enough.

I'm just very annoyed as when I viewed the car twice it seemed to be a great car and the owners were maintaining that it was a great car and I even have a text from them saying "the car is 100%" and seemed genuine and said that anything ever needed to be done on it was done and their neighbor was their mechanic and they had a handwritten book of work that their neighbor done and services etc. So I genuinely thought I was driving away in a bargain that I could have driven on for a while without doing anything on it (bar the AC).

If my dad was still alive he'd tell me to cop on and get the jobs done on it and you've a lovely car there for around €3k and drive her on.

Thanks for everyone's replies on the thread btw.

v240gltse · 09-08-2020 8:50pm

think i would listen to your dad and just enjoy the car. Life's tooooooo short .

_Kaiser_ · 09-08-2020 8:57pm

Like I said before. You cannot buy a car like that and expect to not have to spend some money on it. Your problem I think OP is you're too used to buying late 90s/early 00s cars with very basic equipment and cheap parts

It sounds like there's nothing at all wrong with it beyond wear and tear consumables and things you'd expect occasionally. It's not like the turbo is on the way out or something.

You've two choices.. sell it on to someone who will understand what they are buying, or get the bits done, service it on time, and enjoy the comfort and size of the thing.

colm_mcm · 09-08-2020 10:33pm

You should know straight away if the gearbox issue is solved by fluid change , it won’t take weeks/months.

Tropheus · 10-08-2020 2:04pm

I hope that the fluid change makes a difference, but I wouldn't be very hopeful.

IMO, buying cars like this cheaply only make sense if you're able to do most of the work yourself. If an auto box has a problem, more times than not, it ends up being expensive to fix to the point where it doesn't make economic sense. You could be looking at a clutch pack or torque converter. A rebuild could be in the region of €2k to get it done properly with a warranty.

There's a reason cars like this are available at such a low price point. Someone is trying to move on a problem.

chops018 · 13-08-2020 10:03pm

Just a further update on my saga.

I got the car back from my mechanic.

He did the gear oil change. He said it’s supposed to have about 7 litres but there was only 3.5-4 in it. So it was well due.

He said the car is running much better but he didn’t want to drive it hard as the wheel bearing badly needs to be done.

He said if I’m keeping it I need to make my mind up in the next few days as the wheel bearing does need to be done. He said the other bits I can just do in another while at my own pace.

Now I got it back from him late this evening so I didn’t get to give it a good drive but it does seem to be running much better and there’s no judders. I do want to get it up a a higher speed though and make sure it’s not crawling to get to higher speeds. If it’s ok on that end then all good and I’ll get the wheel bearing done next week and do the other jobs as a good!

colm_mcm · 13-08-2020 10:47pm

Jaysus, just go and drive the hole off it and see what happens. It’s either fixed or it isn’t.
Is this guy an actual Audi mechanic? Do you have to keep fixing things before he figures out why it was down on power?

chops018 · 14-08-2020 9:12am

Following on from Colm's post to "drive the hole off it and see what happens"

I got a good 20 minute drive of it going to work this morning. Firstly, the car itself is driving great now. There are no judders and it's driving grand through the gears in auto. Plenty of poke going up through the gears too. Also, it didn't use much diesel at all going to work this morning whereas a couple of weeks ago before all the work it seemed to be drinking diesel. So they are all good points.

However, I put the boot to the floor at about 100km - 120 km per hour and it seemed to crawl after those speeds and the revs were staying at just under 4000 revs per minute. Now, the car sounded running grand at those speeds but it just wasn't pushing on.

I decided to pop it into the multitronic mode (if that's what you call it?) and change the gears manually at about 120km per hour. It came up on the screen that it was in 5th gear, so I put it into 6th gear and the poke came back into it and it drove on, then put it into 7th gear and the same thing, a bit of poke came into it and it drove on up to about 160km per hour where it then sort of steadied. That's about 100 miles per hour so I suppose even in a manual at that speed the car would start to steady.

Am I just being paranoid now? The car seems running great now. Obviously I am used to a manual where you just put the boot down and you can red line it if you want, but even in a manual at very high speeds it will kind of level off in the high gear.

I know I don't really need to be going the speeds mentioned above but my dad used to always say "it's nice to be able to do it if needed."

(Disclaimer: I generally don't speed and I was very careful on the motorway when doing it and I did it with clear lanes. I did those speeds this morning to test it out and came back down to a safe speed then once I did test it. I generally wouldn't be up at those speeds as a regular occurrence!)

Keano · 14-08-2020 9:29am

If the little niggles about the car are always going be on your mind when you drive it then it's not the car for you.

I own a 2010 A6 manual and bought it over 6 years ago. I always seem to have it at the mechanic sorting little issues here and there but I don't mind that as the car is pushing on - however I still love to drive it and will do so for a long time yet.

colm_mcm · 14-08-2020 9:46am

Sounds like there is still a gearbox fault. I’d be moving it on at this stage.

_Kaiser_ · 14-08-2020 10:28am

colm_mcm wrote: »

Sounds like there is still a gearbox fault. I’d be moving it on at this stage.

I think it needs a 2nd opinion. I wouldn't be impressed by the mechanic throwing parts at it but still not sure what's going on, or reluctant to test drive it properly - OP: Does the guy have the correct diags tools for these cars?

My own suggestion would be for the OP to tell us where he's based so someone can recommend a mechanic they trust in the area to get it properly scanned and assessed

chops018 · 14-08-2020 10:45am

I might get a second opinion as I do like the car. I do know another indy mechanic that is reasonable. He might check it out without charging and give me costs estimate. I will try get his number and ask.

Tbh, I'm not happy either that he didn't give it a good drive. I know he is not charging much for labour but still. He said he had it on the ramp and computer in his workplace and told me everything he saw that it needs doing on the ramp and what the computer told him.

Text him this morning and told him what happened and he said I shouldn't have done those speeds with the wheel bearing on the way out and he said it probably just needs a good drive from sitting up.

Even to me that doesn't sound right!

Toyotafanboi · 14-08-2020 12:58pm

Sounds like your mechanic is a bit of a ham sammich.

What's actually wrong? You feel like the car is losing power?

What you said above is a contradiction saying as you kept going up through the gears the car felt more and more powerful, generally you go down through the gears to find power.

chops018 · 14-08-2020 1:54pm

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

Sounds like your mechanic is a bit of a ham sammich.

What's actually wrong? You feel like the car is losing power?

What you said above is a contradiction saying as you kept going up through the gears the car felt more and more powerful, generally you go down through the gears to find power.

Apologies. I might not be the best at describing things. I'll try again!

It seems to be running fine just going around the town at small to moderate speeds and through the gears with the auto box and is driving very smooth in that regard now. (Apart from hearing the wheel bearing)

However, when I get to around 120km per hour (maybe a little under) it seems to level off and crawls up the speed when I accelerate (the boot to the floor). The revs at this stage are just under 4000 revs per minute.

The funny thing is if I don't put the boot to the floor I can keep it level at 120km per hour speed at lower revs. It's just if I give it the boot it seems to only go to about 120km per hour at 4000 revs but doens't want to speed up quickly after that and crawls up the speed with the boot down. It's like the speed has been maxed out. Fine with a 1 litre car, but not with a 2 litre 140BHP car, surely? The other funny thing is the engine or revs during all this don't sound bad and it drives grand, just very, very slowly goes up in speed once you hit the 4000 revs.

Then this morning I took it out of automatic and put it in the multitronic mode, the + and - to go up and down gears yourself. I understand that in a manual you drop a gear (go to a lower gear) to shoot up revs and get more speed. But, when I took it out of multitronic at just under 4000 revs at 120km per hour it showed on the screen that I was no longer in auto drvie mode and the car was running in 5th gear. I went up a gear to 6th gear and the car dropped revs to about 2500 revs but for some reason when I put the boot down again it went back up in revs and the car sped up quickly. It levelled off again but I put it into 7th gear and same thing happened, the revs dropped a bit and I was able to put the foot down and again it sped up quickly and levelled off then at about 160km per hour. Which is a very high speed so even in a manual you'd imagine it would level off and slowly increase in speed at 160km per hour.

In saying all of the above, the engine and revs and car was driving grand throughout all of what I have described. Just it was finding it hard to go past 4000 revs and very slowly gathers speed after 120km per hour unless you take it out of auto and manually went up gears.

I hope that makes sense and I really do appreciate all of the replies from everyone.

Yeah, maybe a second opinion is warranted.

wonski · 14-08-2020 2:01pm

Any chance it is stuck in the gear when you hit 120km/h and you are close to rev limiter at the same time?

colm_mcm · 14-08-2020 2:29pm

4000 revs? That’s a bit on the high side.

chops018 · 14-08-2020 2:32pm

colm_mcm wrote: »

4000 revs? That’s a bit on the high side.

I'm just rounding up. It's actually somewhere between 3,500 - 4,000. That's with my boot to the floor trying to get it to drive on. If I take the foot off the pedal it goes back down in revs and drives steadily at a much lower rev count. Sorry if I am not making sense again, ha. You would probably really have to drive it yourself! Mechanic said it probably needs a good drive from sitting up, which to me doesn't seem right at all.

I can get to 120km per hour no bother just driving normally. But if I put the boot down it speeds up grand to as fast as 120km per hour but after that it just seems to max out unless I do what I said above.

Darwin · 14-08-2020 2:52pm

Did you ever find out when the timing belt was last done? It should be every 5 years (or whatever mileage it says in the book). If you are unsure, I would budget to get it done and guessing you are looking at €600+ from an indie mechanie for new timing belt, waterpump and thermostat.

chops018 · 14-08-2020 2:57pm

Darwin wrote: »

Did you ever find out when the timing belt was last done? It should be every 5 years (or whatever mileage it says in the book). If you are unsure, I would budget to get it done and guessing you are looking at €600+ from an indie mechanie for new timing belt, waterpump and thermostat.

Yes, I contacted the sellers for this information. Felt like telling them ya sold me a heap of dirt

. I wouldn't do that though, I checked it out twice before buying so it's my problem once I drive it out their gate. They said it was done at 214,000KM. There's 256,000KM on the car currently. So this is ok for another while?

Darwin · 14-08-2020 3:01pm

I'm not sure of the exact interval for a belt change, it should be in your owner's manual. I know that time has passed, but ideally you would have gotten a receipt or invoice showing the work done at the time of purchase rather than taking their word for it.

chops018 · 14-08-2020 3:16pm

Darwin wrote: »

I'm not sure of the exact interval for a belt change, it should be in your owner's manual. I know that time has passed, but ideally you would have gotten a receipt or invoice showing the work done at the time of purchase rather than taking their word for it.

They had a hardback note book with a tab with the car reg written on it and further details handwritten on the page under the tab - the make, model, registration.

There was another tab for the other car they owned which I presume had the same details.

They then had pages of work done by their mechanic (who is their neighbor) with the details of the work done handwritten on the pages after the tab for each car.

I took it as genuine as their neighbor mechanic probably didn't give them the receipts if some items were second hand and I didn't think they'd fabricate a note book of work done for a car that was being sold for €1800.00.

They said for the last NCT they replaced the modular unit for the passenger door which was all that was needed.

It looked like they were very genuine!

chops018 · 14-08-2020 8:18pm

Got it washed while I was in work towards the end of the day.

Scrubs up very well. That was only a tenner wash too. Couple of pics attached.

Drove home very well on the way home which I was surprised by!

Audi A6 - automatic - questions

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