Full S-Tronic and rear sport differential service (RS5)

A5/S5/RS5
#83

Lovely thanks for that :slight_smile:

I actually wanted to follow up on that transmission cooler you mentioned above. Can you link me to a product description/picture and maybe how and where it is installed?

If it’s not too difficult to install I may consider it.

Otherwise been driving the car for 1+ week now since full S-Tronic service and I’ve noticed smoother gear shifts and it “fixed” the rough gear shift from P to R when the car is cold. It wasn’t the case before so it was definitely a sign that the transmission was due for a service. Like right around when the car reached 60k (Audi’s recommended interval to service S-Tronic), in the morning on the first start, when I shifted from P to R to reverse out of my garage, I’d have to apply a bit more force to shift to reverse as I could feel resistance in the gears. And it happened exactly around 60k, fascinating. I think servicing the S-tronic before it gets to that point would make sense.

#84

I agree…I actually service both sides every single time instead of servicing MTF each time and ATF every other time. It’s more expensive but more peace of mind. At the very least, you can just swap fluids and keep the cost down.

On the transmission cooler, link here: https://redmistracing.com/ols/products/rmr-transmission-cooler-kit-for-the-audi-s4-and-s5-b8b85-30t-with-s-tronic-transmission

I make them for the S4/S5 and for the RS5. It can be installed at home in your driveway/garage with normal hand tools, really nothing special needed. I have installation instructions in PDF format and it also lists all the tools needed. It’s about a 3-4 hour job, nothing super hard, just little steps and some patience. Most of it is actually very easy.

I also have longer heat exchanger brackets that work for most HX brands but are really designed for Marc and PLM. Literally the same bracket just longer as the cross bar moves everything forward by about 5". So you now have room for a larger heat exchanger and the transmission cooler.

Here’s a video I did on the cooler. It’s RS5-specific but much of it applies to the S4/S5 as well.

It’s quite effective and I think it’s now been installed on around 300 cars all across the globe from here in N. America, Canada to Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, India and S. America. It’s 100% bolt on with no cutting and is fully reversible.

Besides that, I’m a dealer for JH Motorsports, 034, BC Forged, Ohlins, Antigravity batteries, Kline exhaust systems, etc…

1 Like
#85

Beautiful, thanks for the reply and all the details.
I’ll have a look and review the video to see if it’s something I can do.
Thanks Ape, Audi should hire you to improve their engineering :smiley:

RS5 oil change DIY extraction method
#86

Hi folks, I’m doing this service on my 2014 today. Unfortunately, my driveway is (like most) not level and I don’t have a garage to do this in. Despite my best efforts, I cant get the transmission perfectly level, so I’m doing it the “measure and fill +50ml” method. Just to make sure I don’t have any big discrepancies when I do it this way, does anybody remember how much ATF and MTF transmission fluid you drained/put back in?

#87

Read through my written description or watch my video, I think I mentioned how much I drained/ filled there somewhere :). I can’t remember off hand but it was def under 5L on the MTF side, 5-6L on the ATF side.

#88

Appreciate the reply, Ape. I didn’t see it in there (just saw it for the diff), but that’s no big deal! Really more of a sanity check than anything. The transmission is close to level anyways, so I should be fine.

Level-ish

This car has had its fair share of German Engineering quirks as I’ve worked through various maintenance/repairs - learned the hard way to be better safe than sorry!

Besides all that though, was sad to hear that the RMR trans cooler is going to be discontinued! I totally get the reasoning though - hopefully sometime we can scrounge up a big enough group to make it worth it. I swear I’ve had that page bookmarked from 2 years ago, before I even bought this car.

#89

All right folks, it happened. And it is not a good it.

As of right now, do not use the oil pan bolts that ECS tuning provides with their DSG service kit (PN ES#3551610).

Upon attempting to reinstall the ATF oil pan, going painstakingly slow in my little star pattern, I got back to the first bolt, and all of a sudden, righty tighty was righty loosey. The bolt broke, inside the bore, under the mating surface. it took… maybe 5 ftlb for it to break? No discernable torque increase, and then it was gone.

Digging deeper into this, here is what I found. The threaded holes drilled into the transmission have a drill point at the bottom, as most holes do. However these look to be 90° included angles, rather than the typical 118°. The OEM bolts also have this angle, seemingly to fit deeper into this hole. The ECS bolts do not have this angle, and are even slightly longer than the OEM bolts.

I then bottomed both of these bolts into the same hole, and it turns out, the ECS bolt bottoms out before clamping the pan and gasket. I measured, and its about .020" too “long”. Of course, that number would change depending on the tolerances of all the components included.
Email is out to ECS to check their stock/remove these bolts/use OEM ones.

Bolt Comparison and Installed Pictures

Me and a friend of mine spent something like 5 hours trying to get that thing out, to no avail. I then promptly went on vacation, and spent 5 days at the beach wondering how the hell I was going to get that little f*cker out.
I came back, spent another hour or two at it, once again, no luck. I’ve never properly drilled and installed a helicoil before (which i figured it would need), so embarrassing as it was, off it went, towed to the shop. They just finished with it today, and unfortunately, that bolt was stuck so bad and at such an angle that they had to size up the bolt AND still helicoil it AND charge me an arm and a leg for it. Hurt my soul to hear, but I’m glad that its fixed. Hopefully this doesn’t prevent dealerships from working on the transmission in the future if that’s what it comes down to, because of the mismatched sizes.

Anyways, long story short - check your bolts. Don’t end up like me. And good luck.

#90

Too late for my opinion but for things like that I use this dealer and find their parts prices for many OEM parts are less than ECS, for non dealer stuff I usually use RM European, FCP, or Europaparts. I just ordered a set of these as I’m coming up on 25k since the last service on my S5 (Audi says 35k).


Not sure what ECS price is but I bet it’s more than $0.30 each.
#91

Thanks for the recommendation there - I’ve had some trouble in the past as to where I should buy my parts from. I’d like to say I treat this car better than my daily, and not just buy the cheapest thing that pops up on google lol.

The kicker of all this is that I actually had a set of OEM bolts that I ordered from FCP euro, along with the crossmember stretch bolts and such. So I had two new sets, FCP euro and ECS. ECS was just closer to my hand, and they ended up being the ones I grabbed. Imagine if I had just grabbed the other bag of bolts… ahh, what could have been.

Not sure what the ECS price is, as it came with the DSG service kit, but I would tend to agree with you there.