Nine Mile Skid

The BMW dealership has had this M5 sitting in stock for awhile, so I think they were trying to lore me with 600hp and up sell me. They wanted me to test drive it and I was happy to oblige. I am now one step closer to ordering the RS5 SB as the BMW would be $25-30K more then the Audi. I do wish however that AoA still offered European Delivery. I've done it previously and it's a blast. Mercedes, BMW, Porsche and Volvo still offer it.

MRA5SB

I agree on the European delivery. Their excuse that the global nature of the production being the reason for stopping it is B.S. Just because they build SUVs in Mexico now doesn't mean they cant do ED for cars still built in Germany.

SCarGuy

They stopped it because nearly no one did it...it was a pure numbers scenario, nothing more, nothing less.

They only build 2 SUV's in Mexico

WasSD18S5CAB

No, you choose the number of years of pre-paid maintenance 2, 3, 4 years. The figure I'm quoting is for 4 years on a E53 ($1,965).

Rather than relying on anecdotal evidence, all this information is readily available using the respective configurators for the vehicles in questions, one of which is an "AMG" (depending on your opinion of what's a "true" AMG and what is not). Again, I've just had the rear pads/rotors done on my B9 S5 and it was $1365 which is in-line with Merc/BMWs. Actually, having to replace the rotors with less than 30k on them was a first for me - so arguably it's been more expensive to-date than the BMW, Mercs, Porsches that preceded it.

Not sure what you're referring to as "straight-maintenance". Audicare is pre-paid maintenance, as are the programs offered by MB and BMW. It's a question of what's included. In what i quoted, Audi and MB do not include brake pad replacement, BMW does.

The G Man

The Mercedes E53 and BMW 550i should really be compare to the S6. Just the fact that the OP is compare the RS5 to the competitor's higher say a lot about the RS5.

evanseric21

From a price perspective the RS5 Sportback is in competition with the Mercedes AMG E53 and BMW M550i which is also why I crossed shopped them. The E53 and the M550i are actually the cheaper versions of their big brothers the E63s and the M5.
I agree with you from a car size perspective that those vehicles do compete more with the S6 though.

superswiss

The ED programs is definitely something that very few customers are taking advantage of. It's an educating the dealer process every time as most SAs have never done one. I'm doing it with MB now and the GM told me that MBUSA only does about 20 EDs a month. Yet despite volume sellers such as the GLC, GLE and all C-class sedans being assembled in Alabama there is no sign of them terminating the program. Porsche is the only one that currently charges for it. I would personally pay if it's a matter of cost. The thing is Audi et all continue to do factory deliveries for European customers. ED customers have been a very small drop in the bucket, so I can't imagine they are saving a lot of money by terminating it. It's always been sort of a best kept secret and halo program. It might attract customers, but few can make it work. In Europe however, picking up your car at the factory is very popular. I forgot the exact number, but Audi is delivering a couple of hundred vehicles every day in Ingolstadt, so one or two European Deliveries a day don't move the needle. There's a lot more paperwork to be done for EDs of course, so I'm guessing it was a low hanging fruit for Audi to lay off the ED staff.

IvanLZ

It really depends what you want here. The RS5 has the performance but sizing wise is smaller than the E class and the 5 series. You are paying extra on the RS5 for more performance while the merc and bmw offer decent performance but more space. That's why its hard to compare them as equal since they are on a different segment.

You should cross shop between the RS5, C63 and M4 or the S6, E53 and M550i. Judging by how you are cross shopping the RS5 with the latter then I will think the RS5 will make you happier since size doesn't seem to be that important to you.

evanseric21

You literally just repeated everything I said lol. For someone like me I wouldn't purchase an S6 knowing the new A6's were just released and the new S6 is around the corner which made me look at the RS5 Sportback. I considered the AMG E53 Sedan and M550i series as initially I was looking at a larger car. I came to realize I prefer the size of the RS5 Sportback and enjoy the extra performance. Many people are cross shopping these solely based on price. As I mentioned if you are comparing size then yes the S6 is more comparable to the E class and 5 series.

heymoe

It makes sense to not provide ED on vehicles not built in or around Germany. Seems silly to ship a Q5 from Mexico to Germany for ED and then have to ship it back to the US unless the customer was willing to pay extra for the additional shipping.

I don't see why they could not continue to provide ED on the cars that are still built in Germany. I would have loved to do ED on my RS5 SB I have on order.