A positive thread about the V10 S6

A6 All/ S6 All
#1

This forum is an awesome place for S6 owners, it’s a plethora of knowledge about everything we want to know or are still trying to figure out. But as a forum that’s mostly geared toward technical advice, we see lots of threads about problems with these cars, so I thought I’d break that up a little with a thread dedicated towards positive thoughts, experiences, and opinions of our beloved V10 S6’s. I’ll start:

A few hours ago, I landed back in town after a trip to Boston all week. Fired up the car in the parking garage (which sounds amazing in there by the way), and headed to my office to drop off 150lbs of luggage in my trunk. As I exited one freeway to enter a different one, along a long and sweeping onramp, I notice a new BMW on my ass. It was a 2-lane onramp, we were both in the left lane going about 60mph while passing a truck. As soon as I passed the truck, I saw the BMW swerve into the right lane and go full throttle. My instincts from my youth kicked in, and I slammed the gas pedal and the transmission dropped into 3rd. The BMW had a little head start, as he got to pick up some speed before I hit the gas in the S6, and he pulled about 5 feet past me - just enough to see a dealer plate on the back and a shiny new M5 emblem. Holy shit. I didn’t relent, we both kept our gas pedals mashed to the floor as the G-force of the sweeping onramp started to build up. As we hit about 90mph, I noticed something - his M5 redlined and shifted into 4th, while my car was still purring along in 3rd all the way to nearly 100. This was the advantage I needed, and we became neck-and-neck as the onramp straightened out. I could see the guy with a deathgrip on his steering wheel, desperately trying to pull into the lead again. As the S6 shifted to 4th, we were pretty much still side-by-side up to about 125mph, when the unthinkable happened. My S6 started pulling ahead, half a car length, then a full car length, and then about 20 feet ahead of him when we both decided we’d had enough (I think we were close to 135-140 by that point) and backed off. I slowed down and let him go by, and we rolled down our windows and waved to each other. His passenger even gave me a “thumbs up”.

Is it really possible that my 101k mile 2007 S6 with a trunk full of luggage pulled away from a factory-new M5? Well, it happened. I am certain that if we had raced from a standing start, he would have spanked me. But I’ve been saying for months that these S6’s have some serious balls at highway speed, and it was nice to finally have some proof. I think their biggest reason for the “slow” 0-60 and 1/4-mile times we’ve been seeing is that the transmission is sloppy going from 1st to second, and 2nd to 3rd. It really seems to waste a lot of time trying to grab hold of the next gear.

Oh by the way, my AC was blowing hard the whole time, didn’t have time to turn it off ;D

Anyone else want to share some fun stories?

#2

I just did a little digging on the M5, it looks to be a twin-turbo V8 with a 7-speed auto (would explain why his tranny shifted almost 10mph earlier than mine). As a lot of us here know, a turbocharged engine really lacks in performance at high speed most of the time, but have great off-the-line performance. This, I think, explains what happened today. But aren’t M5’s supposed to perform “superior in every way” to the S6 according to all the reports? Also, I always thought the M5’s all had V10’s, but apparently they phased those out around the same time as the S6’s (m5 V10 was 2005-2010).

And on that note, I wonder if a C7 S6 has worse high-speed acceleration than a C6. We all know the 0-60 of the C7 is superior, but again, smaller engine with turbos…

#3

I remember my old 2002 WRX I had when I was younger, that did the 1/4 in 13.5 seconds, 4.5 second 0-60. Manual Trans, turbos, and AWD made for a pretty quick car off the line. But it could barely keep up with a V6 Mustang in a freeway race. It was actually embarassingly bad acceleration at higher speeds. Which is, I believe, a huge reason why my S6 is 10x more fun to drive, even if it doesn’t launch as fast.

#4

Cool story!

I think you are right, these v10s really pull once they get rolling.

#5

We know how the 1/4-mile compares between the c6 and the c7, but I’m really curious what the comparison would look like in a race from, say, 70mph to 150. I’d bet $20 the C6 wins. Turbos (even twin turbos) really can’t keep up with a smaller displacement engine screaming away at 6000rpm in 4th gear.

Just an FYI for anyone curious (I’m sure 99% of you guys already know this, as most of us seem to have owned turbo cars at some point), generally speaking a twin turbo doesn’t exactly mean “double the turbo”. The PSI at the manifold is usually the same as a single-turbo. The primary benefit of a twin-turbo setup is a reduction in turbo lag, rather than for an increase peak power.

Anyways, let’s hear some other good stuff about the C6 S6!!

#6

From a roll to about 120 my s6 was pretty strong. I’d agree from a roll the v10 is solid. The m5 would have started walking you if you continued but to that point in 3rd gear u can do pretty decent.

#7

A stock F10 M5 puts down over 500 at the wheels in stock form. I’m not sure what happened in our little get together with this guy, but it’s not something that’s repeatable.

Sounds fun, nonetheless!

#8

Sorry for the mistake in the above post- should have read …“at the wheels in stock form”, not “Stock F10 M5 … in stock form” ::slight_smile:

#9

These v10 cars are deadly off a roll. A close friend just got an S8 v10. We were coming out of an industrial park when we saw a coyote mustang with full exhaust come around a turn around going full throttle spinning and then hard acceleration out of the turn staying in it. We saw him come through n the turn around gunning it. He was about 3 cars ahead of our location. We gunned the S8 from about 45 mph and closed the gap and slowly started passing the Mustang both of us looking over as we slowly passed him. The further we went the faster the S8 accelerated. A very impressive car.

It was funny I’m a mustang fan. But it was funny to hear this mustang making all this racket and all the show while we quietly but quickly drove past him. Fun and funny

#10

These cars have such good sound insulation, that I always thought my Milltek exhaust was sort of on the quiet side. The other day, as I was driving through a parking garage, I decided to put it in neutral and give it a little rev. It set off 3 car alarms.

#11

Not gonna lie, I was as surprised as you… fully expected it to be a losing race. I don’t think it was a matter of poor driving, it was relatively straight for the last half of the race and we were both pedal to the floor with auto trannys, hard to do that wrong. I was still pulling away even at around 130, I’d bet i would have still been ahead once we both pegged out at 155, though we didn’t get the chance to try. He did have an adult passenger and I didn’t, but I had about the same weight in luggage in the back. I also had about 1/8 tank of gas and he may have been full. Who knows. Too bad we parted ways, I’d have loved to have chatted with him about his M5 for a bit, since I know very little about them.

#12

Wow your talking about high speeds, I though it was 70-100 where this car can keep up the m5 should have walked you, he may not have been in the proper m spirt settings and yes luggage and passenger will hurt him. You probably caught him off guard in the wrong settings :slight_smile: keep up I’d possible in that scenario :slight_smile:

#13

I had the luggage, he had the passanger. It’s possible he was in the wrong drive mode, but shouldn’t a car like that respond to the pedal mashed to the floor by putting it in whatever the fastest mode is automagically? Take for example the S6, when you put it in Manual shift mode, it still downshifts appropriately when you mash the pedal all the way. It’ll override your manual gear selection when it can tell you’re trying to go as fast as possible.

#14

I have not yet driven a new m5 but the previous gen e60 v10 I had regular mode and m mode, regular mode was 400 hp, and m mode was 507.

Anything Is possible, but remember the new m5 is excess of 550 hp vs. 435 in the s6, so on a roll in full on model I’d expect a new m5 to walk away from a c6 s6, either eat as long as you enjoyed car that’s what matters, I prefer tq v10 in c6 s6 va. E60 in 90% of drovinf, other 10 percent the m5s are on another level…

#15

Definitely, fun is what matters most, and I’d say we both had a lot of fun. Didn’t really matter who “won”, we both just wanted to see what each other’s cars could do. It’s funny, in a lot of the “S6 vs M5 vs E63” articles that were written at the time, they almost all say something like “Well, the E63 and the M5 beat the S6 at almost everything… but dammit, the S6 is just more fun to drive for some reason”. I’ve never driven an M5 or an E63, but I’ll definitely say the S6 is an absolute joy to drive.

#16

It mattered to him. He dumped his M5 the next day and picked up a v10 S6

#17

Agreed on both accounts that’s why I went from e60 m5 to an s6 :slight_smile: just giving perspective on both sides. I miss my s6 twice as much as my m5, I guess all my prior cars have a special place, if cost wee no option I wouldn’t have gotten rid of any!

#18

My best friend has an E63 and lusts after my car. Although they are not great cars and I would love to pick some options off of his car! I’ve always been partial to VAG cars so it’s a tough sell to get me into an E63, but if I got the deal he got I would be driving a Benz right now. His was a true cream puff with 22k on the odo of a 2010, car is mint and he got it for a song. He will drive it for a year or two and probably get what he paid for it. He was at the right place at the right time and jumped on it.