While not exactly in the grave, it was definitely heading that direction if nobody intervened. Problems have a tendency to snowball, and new issues were popping up seemingly every month, most of which were probably the result of existing ignored problems. If I didn’t want to watch my car slowly die an early death, it was time to do something about it. I think JHM has breathed new life into it to hopefully get at least another 6 or 7 years out of it, as long as I never let things get that bad again.
On the plus side, having it all done at once was no doubt easier for JHM, a lot of things only needed to get taken apart once to perform several different things.
No idea when the tuning will be done, presumably some of it will be custom for my car, and that takes times. Plus I’m sure they’ll want to do significant testing until they’re confident that everything is right. Plus I’m not sure what all they might be using the car for in terms of R&D, hopefully we’ll see some cool new products hit their website as a result, it looks like there’s already a few. But all of that takes time and I definitely don’t want them to feel rushed, so I’ll get the car back whenever I get it back
ALL good points. it is a snowball effect. One thing leads to another that leads to another. as one part wears out another has to take the load or work harder to help.
I would expect to see a transformed car and a car that now is more like how the car should have come from the factory. the cars look fantastic and dont show age like someother Audis. these motors run strong once you take care of all the supporting systems your doing it right
That’s interesting. Here in Houston, all you will see is 93 octane gas for premium. I always wondered why the specs said 91, but never ran into a gas station that had anything between 89 and 93. But I’ll be damned if I choke my Audi on 89 again! Lol
I think the standard fuels across the US are 87 for regular, 89 for midgrade, and premium is either 91 or 93 depending on your state - 91 for most western states.
I put 87 in my Subaru one time in an emergency (ran out of gas on the roadside, and that’s all the AAA truck had available), and my car ran like absolute SHIT until I was able to get some fresh gas into it. That car had a 91-minimum fuel requirement as well. Ever since then, I’ve been careful to never use anything below premium. I’ll walk 5 miles to a gas station with an empty can before I’ll accept a free gallon of 87 from someone. Even my old '03 V6 Passat gets the good stuff. Well worth an extra couple bucks per tank.
I haven’t scouted any local gas stations with higher grade fuel yet, but as of a couple years ago people were reporting that a couple 76 stations in my area had 100-octance pump gas, hopefully that’s still true today. You’re technically not supposed to fill your car from the pump since it’s not highway-legal gas, but I’m not sure if anyone would stop me if I did
It all depends on where you are for the fuel that is available. I have seen 85 octane only in certain places like UT and I pushed the car to make it to town about 50 miles away.
Then with certain cars there is no point in running higher quality fuel then required. For instance low compression NA engines like my 5.0 liter V12 BMW actually run worse with anything higher than 87 octane. I actually failed an OBD1 RWD emissions test on a dyno with the sniffer because I had a tank of 93 octane. Ran the car again a week later after putting 87 in it and running it a bit to find that it passed. Just a thought.
Unleaded 100 to 103 gas is usually street legal. The leaded stuff is not usually street legal. I put $30 of unleaded 100 in my car down the street from JHM on my trip like it was normal.
You know that when you buy a German car, it’s a commitment to purchasing the highest grade fuel you can find for it. If you can’t buy the gas you probably shouldn’t buy the car
my Irish model is supposed to be ran on 98 and best i can get from the pump is 95, i use some Octane booster to bring it up to about 97. Im sure its different measurement of ron over here.
Yep you guys have different ratings over there, but it’s a pretty simple conversion. 95 for you is our 89 (mid-grade). 98 for you is our 91. So your car has the same octane requirement as ours, just your number system is different.
Indeed, I see that in Ireland you guys really only have 1 grade of gas, 95 (89 US). That sucks. Thought we had it bad in California.
What i found in the past was the euro 98 is our 93 and that 95 is more like our 90 or 91. There is a 5 point difference from what I have read and noticed. The best you generally see in euro is 98 and thats what you see on your gas fill sticker it says either euro 98 or us 93 priemium
I mentioned this elsewhere on the forum, but figured it’s worth a mention here just to keep everything in one place. Near the end of the project, JHM discovered an oil leak coming from the oil cooler, so that needed to be replaced as well, costing us a few more days and bucks, but glad they found it, one less thing to go wrong in the future. They should be wrapping things up within the next couple days hopefully, and I’ll be sure to write a full post-upgrades review as soon as I get a chance! Have to head to europe soon so it might be a little while before I can actually go pick up the car and put a few miles on it.
I’ll probably need to log at least a few days of driving before I can write any worthwhile review, because I’m so used to driving much lower-performance cars in the interim that the S6 is going to feel like a rocket no matter what. Hopefully my memory is good enough to be able to provide a good before/after comparison.
In november, I’ll be going to the JHM-sponsored “Audi night” at the local drag strip, so I can report the track times when that happens, and maybe even convince a fellow Audi guy to shoot a video. In the interim, I’ll try to film some videos of my own. Definitely getting excited! It’s the same feeling I got when the truck unloaded my S6 when I first bought it