shredr

I have the opportunity to pick up a 2006 a6 s-line from a family member.
3.2 6-sp quattro, ~75k miles

Not sure if I should do it....

Currently in a very early 1998 A4Q2.8 that I love, best car I've ever owned, and I know it like the back of my hand mechanicly. I've done all maint myself for 15yrs, upgraded suspension etc etc ...but its got 260k on it.

I'm convinced I'd get 400k out of my A4....but this A6 is cherry. All maintaince records, owner very meticulous, serviced by a mechanic who preps/races Porsches, and I can get it for a song.

Anything I need to look for with the A6? Don't have a lot of time to research heavily...

Thanks!

kainy

As I now drive my second 4F, but with 3.0 TDI, I can't tell you much about the petrol engine, aside from the carbon build up issue (which if maintained properly shouldn't bother you) and that it does eat up a lot of fuel. Other than that it should be a fine engine.

As for the 4F itself... As I said I'm into my second now, just because I kinda totaled my first one, but still decided to get the same car again. The car basically is very good, but my personal opinion is that it needs to have a considerable amount of extras to be worth it. On the other hand is a very nice car to retrofit and thinker with.

As for reliability it does have its pros and cons. The suspension is quite good and resilient, but rides a bit rough. My second one is with air suspension and the difference is quite big. Earlier models have some problems with different systems, for example the valve for the climatronic (separating hot from cold) gets busted quite often. The electronic parking brake can have issues because of a half-baked design (fixed in the facelift). All and all there is quite some number of modules and extras that can go wrong, but the car is very common, and most of them are not expensive at all to replace. Don't get me wrong, the electronics of the car don't break every other day, but basically they are the only thing that is most common to bother you. Mechanically speaking the car close perfect, although a bit of a hell sometime to repair (due to the way some things are fitted).

No need to comment on the quattro... its awesome in any way. The automatic gearbox is a must have. The second one I got was with manual and I had hopes of it being any good... nope. Its horrible and at all not the correct gearbox for this car. I'm actually gonna retrofit my automatic gearbox as soon as possible . The older ones don't have adaptation capabilities, which means that even after the newest update it does kick a little sometimes, but other than that it works well.

The only big con for me about this car are actually the brakes... They do need proper upgrade, for anything over 2.0TDI. I personally put into it an all ATE system with front Power Disks (grilled and ventilated) and ceramic pads, and normal ventilated disks and pads on the rear, plus (very important) metal plated brake hoses (couldn't find Goodridge locally, so I use HoseTechnik). After that the car stops perfectly and the total cost is about 600 euro.

That's all I can think of at the moment. If you have any particular questions, please ask.

Oh, and yeah, 75k miles is nothing for this car. Mine is probably (because in my part of the world... well all cars sell as 140 000km ) over 350 000km (217k miles) and everything hods up nicely. The engine needs some new tensioners and chains, but that is to be expected.

jfcottis

I just bought 2008 s-line with only 58500 miles. Clean car. After 500 miles engine light came on. Looking at $8000 dealer repair. Timing chain stretch and replace tensioners and guides. Now is this car worth 25g's? Don't think so! Beware. Regrets in Utah.

kainy

For the chains to go bust on 60k miles petrol car, is highly unlikely. Same even for a diesel one. Its either a deffect or something else caused it, such as long usage with low oil level. Normally chains start to rattle after 250k km and in most cases it is just one or both top tensioners.

On the other hand, full service of the chains is in no way 8000 dollars... I can speek only in euro, but still the difference shouldn't be that huge. The parts are around 1000€ for the whole set. Work is around 22 hours. Normal shop would charge you around 1000€. I've seen quotes from americans that it costs them between 3000-4000 dollars, which is still a bit too much, but nowhere near 8000...

On top of that after this you have basically a new engine. And this problem can be easily diagnosed as on cold start it will rattle over a second (under a second is not a big deal)

saifxnyc

carbon deposits are pretty big on c6 3.2L engine