ocles_inc

I decided that it would be good proof of reliability to enter one of our 2000 A6 C5 Audi Quattro 4.2 V8 in the 2017 Virginia City Hill Climb, to show how rock solid the ZF 5HP-24A transmission is once the pressure regulator in the lower front valve body has been renewed.

This transmission has gotten a bad reputation because without that crucial piece of preventative maintenance, then after 15 years or so the pressure regulator will allow a pressure spike through, which blows out the clutch "A" drum, after which forward gears 1, 2, 3 and 4 all slip and the car is in limp-home mode. This requires a transmission removal and repair project.

My daily driver is a black 2000 A6 C5 Audi Quattro 4.2 V8, and my techs and I have performed this crucial preventative maintenance task. We also did the timing belt and generally spruced things up. Ever since then I've been driving the car hard, which means for the last 16,000 miles or so .. road trips to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, trips back and forth across the Sierra Nevada ... the car has been 100% reliable and a joy to drive.

However, to roar it up a steep 5 1/4 mile stretch along Nevada highway 341 at full power, as fast as the twisty road permits, would be a better test yet. Both of my techs enjoy driving so I let one of them do the driving honors. Things went well.



Getting the black car raceworthy included removing the center console, which exposed two upward-pointing bolts that made the perfect mounting point for a fire extinguisher.



We also swapped in some front seats from a 2001 Audi A6 Quattro 4.2 V8 because we liked the side bolsters.

The competition in this general class was intense. They placed us along with several high-end Ferraris (no surprise, since the events is put on by the Ferrari Club), an AC Cobra, a Sunbeam Tiger, McClaren, GT-R, several Ford Mustangs, and several Corvettes.



Our Audi was perhaps the slowest car in the supercar group, but that’s sort of like being the least powerful superhero. It’s still highly capable, and our driver didn’t have to fight wheelspin such as the AC Cobra and Sunbeam Tiger did. The other cars were loud; by contrast, our Audi quietly and elegantly zoomed away from the green flag, and shuttled its occupants safely and quickly to the finish line.





The other Audi in the race was an Audi R8, a two-seater, mid-engined supercar with approximately twice the power, and as popularized in the Iron Man movies. In this race, that car had two drivers. Our humble-seeming A6 actually turned in a better time than the R8, for the slower of the two drivers of the R8, so we came in second out of a field of three in the Audi category. Audi cars seem to be in a class of their own, in more ways than one, including this race.





Especially given the fact that it’s an eighteen-year old car, racing against some almost-new supercars, it did really well.

About mid-way through race day, our A6 car started feeling slow off the line, and in the line-up waiting for the next run, right then and there, one of the two techs identified and fixed a vacuum leak that was interfering with the car’s ability to optimize for low-end speed.




A good time was had by all, and I enjoyed being able to show that a well-maintained 2000 Audi A6 C5 Quattro 4.2 V8, with its ZF 5HP-24A transmission, can be a reliable vehicle, even under pressure.


~Tanya

clancy

Good on you.

Harleyguy

I bet that was a ton of fun!!!!

ocles_inc

Thank you for the positive comments. Yes, it was a lot of fun -- but not relaxing for me. There was much to manage, mainly people issues ... which is maybe a redundancy ... isn't that's all that managing really ever entails? On race day stress levels are naturally high albeit in a good way, and many people cannot always effectively articulate their need for how much personally space they need, plus it's different than on a normal day, so I helped with that, before people could get stressed out in a bad way.

It worked well enough that nobody died, so I consider it a victory. I'm actually serious about that. If our driver had gotten stressed out and missed a turn at this speed it could have ended badly even with all the safety precautions.

Here is another nice picture. It shows a Corvette, Viper and Ferrari. I'm happy that our A6 was in the same class. The sign sums it up nicely since this was at the starting line, and the course is indeed just over 5 miles long.





Below is another cool picture. It shows the GT-R that ended up having the best time, and a fire truck on standby at the starting line. A stark reminder ...



I surf, and Hawaii is my favorite place, but the north shore stuff scares me. I'm not that good. So when I was at a surfing competition on Oahu, I was just a spectator. the north shore there (Sunset Beach, Banzai Pipeline, etc.) has massive waves breaking shallow in razor sharp coral -- not a great combination.

The local ambulance people seemed to agree. When I was there, they were already there, too, at the ready. I interviewed them for an article (I write professionally part-time) and they explained that during the average surfing competition there, it's a near-certainty they're going to get called out so they decided it best to just come hang out and watch the surfing and thus have a near-instant response time as opposed to having to drive 45 minutes from the hospital in Honolulu to the north shore.

I was glad to see that the local fire department for this race used a similar premise.

We had a Nevada Highway Patrol (NHP) guy there too. NHP people are cool, whether at this race or anywhere else. As opposed to being jerks, they actively seem to be working on the premise of "let's try to get you to die from natural causes" and "yeah, voters have passed some pretty dumb preemptive laws and I'm tasked with enforcing them but my enthusiasm for what I do is well-synchronized with how much sense a particular task makes." An NHP guy was actually the "last straw" that inspired me to move to Nevada. I'd done something unsafe and the way he handled it made me decide "if Nevadans are this cool, that's where I wanna live."

Having this race occur here in northern Nevada very much fits the spirit of the place. Unless the early 70s there were no highway speed limits in Nevada. Instead, the laws of physics and common sense applied. Come to think of it, they still do.

Come and join us, next year!

~Tanya

tanya_charbury

I realize now that my report comes across as a little impersonal, sorry. I really did have a great time there though as the Boss Lady there was a lot to manage. Here are some pictures of me by the car. It's also my daily driver, and it still has the sticker on the door, a month later. :-)

meternerd

I bought my A6 2.7T while we lived in Truckee, CA, just up the hill from Reno. Great drive up to Virginia City. Fun place when you get there, too. Lot of gold miner history. Even has the Bonanza set from the TV show still down by Tahoe. Sounds like you had a good time. First I heard about the tranny weakness. Is this the same one as in the 2.7? I had the torque converter clutch seal failure, but I thought that was the only weakness they had. I drive mine pretty easy, though. Probably not worth spending much on a fix.

tanya_charbury

Truckee, Tahoe and Reno make for great places to live -- when the economy is good. They're especially good Audi Quattro country: steep inclines and lots of snow and ice.

I love Virginia City and its history. Its massive gold and silver deposits financed a large portion of the Union war effort, which is why Prez Lincoln was so keen on rushing Nevada into statehood.during the Civil War, hence the state motto of "Battle Born" as in "came into being during the war." The entire state constitution was sent to Washington via telegraph, the longest document ever sent as such. Virginia City also financed the de facto creation of San Francisco. So it's a vital part of US culture. Without it, the world might have looked very, very different today.

Your technical questions are so good that I plan to write an official company thread about each one (soon, is the plan -- but no promises).

Thank you for the inspiration and nice comment.

~Tanya

PS: I still haven't taken the door decal off.