[blue2fire]

EDIT:I was not the unfortunate Owner of this (Very) Expensive RS6, just googled it and pasted the whole thing.

You know you want one. You can probably even afford one due to the monumental depreciation. But can you afford to run one?


Here are my experiences of 3 glorious years RS6 ownership. I hope you find it helpful.

I was lucky enough to have a successful business back in 2004 and decided to buy the car of my dreams - an RS6.

Actually, it hadn't quite worked out like that. I'd bought the new 4.2 Audi S4 and had so much trouble with it I'd left it on the dealers forecourt and written to Audi in Germany to reject the car. After many arguments they eventually agreed to give me the full purchase price of the S4 against the purchase of a new RS6.

£62,000 didn't seem much back then....

At the outset I decided to take advantage of the Audi Tyres, Service and Maintenance plan. A jolly good deal as it turns out. At an annual mileage agreement of 10,000 miles it cost just £60 per month.

I knew I would exceed 10k per year but the excess mileage wasn't too bad. I eventually did just over 43k in the 3 years and had to pay an extra £900. So my running costs (excluding fuel - we'll come to that) were 36x£60 = £2,160 plus the £900. Just over £3,000 or £1,000 per year!

But what would the real costs have been without the super maintenance plan? A damn site more.

In that time I had 4 sets of tyres fitted which would have cost approx £200 per tyre so that's about £3,200 (see, I said the maintenance plan was a steal)

Next we have servicing. I didn't know exactly how much they charged because I never saw the bills but I cannot imagine even the small services (10k and 30k) were much under £200 due to the expensive fully synthetic oil and the sheer amount of it required. The 20k service was a fairly big one and no doubt £300 ish but the 40k was a monster full day affair and had to be at least £300 so to be conservative we'll call it £1,000. And a bi-annual brake fluid change for another £100.

A particularly sore point with Audi maintenance was the cambelt change. I had the car booked in on its third birthday for two reasons. One was that the warranty expired on that day and the second was that the maintenance also ended. Boy did they argue the toss over the cambelt. First they tried to say it wasn't due until 60k. I had already got it in writing from Audi that it was 3 years - mileage irrelevant. Then they tried to say that I wasn't covered because I'd exceeded the maintenance mileage. I pointed out that since they were charging excess mileage they had to pay and that the mileage didn't matter - they would have had to pay even if I'd only done 50 miles!!

Cambelt prices varied according to where in the country you were but the 7.8 hour (or 5.6 depending on who you talk to) job will cost around £1,000.

Lets not forget brakes. Two sets of front discs, three (maybe four, I lost count) of front pads and one set of rear discs and two rear pads. The fronts are 8 piston calipers so imagine the size of them. I reckon on a full set of front and rear pads and discs costing a grand so lets be generous and say £2,500 for braking.

So a VERY conservative estimate for 3 years 45k miles running excluding fuel would be £7,500 or £2,500 per year. Fuel ran at about 25 to the gallon (so they say - I don't think I really ever saw much over 20) and we'll call a litre of super £1 (I know it isn't now) so that adds another £8000. £15,000 over 3 years - wow.

Don't forget insurance and the inevitible repair bills that a 4 or 5 year old 50k mile supercar will need.

Also ask a very important question of the seller - has the DRC been repaired. DRC stands for Dynamic Ride Control and is the fluid based system consisting of the shocks and valves which on a survey at RS246.com (great website for info about the pitfalls and joys) 77% of surveyed RS6 owners had suffered problems with. The system was a pain for inexperienced dealers to repair and regularly failed more than once. A 3k repair for a whole set. My car failed its first MOT on leaking NSF shocker.

Might be an idea to factor in £2,500 per year for an Audi extended warranty. There are others available but they are almost not worth the paper they are printed on due to the max claim limits compared to the vast cost of RS6 engines/auto boxes etc. £7.5k + a year to run a car; heavens.

So would I buy another one? F*CK yeah. Best car I have ever owned. Could I afford to run one now? Not a chance.

And Cut!
Hope you found it helpful, just convert the pounds into dollars and factor in inflation.I should also point out that Audi of America does not offer the maintenance plan he was harping on about.

Edit:Inflation irrelevant,this was posted in 08.