Soooo… where to begin…
(I don’t quite know how to embed pictures yet, but I’ll come back and update/edit)
I bought a 2008 S6 with full Audi dealer service records from a used car dealership As-Is with under 60k miles, unitronic tune, bilstein sport suspension… And I think that’s the gist of what had been done to it. $21-22k+tax etc… traded in my 08 A4 with like 116k miles and like $5k in the red when all said and done… The goal at that point was to get one of the last V10 engine sedans from Audi that’ll probably ever be released. The car ran/runs flawlessly though, so I didn’t think it’d be much more than maybe a couple leaks to cover. Great. Low miles. Great. I expected to have to sink $5k into it on random stuff just off reading through the forums for the few days between me trying to decide between the S6 and this 09 S8 that was at a dealership near this one.
Cool, so I got the car, great… paper tags… not so great… bought in different state than where I live… but it’s cool. Took to inspection, but the car had dark tints on it so I figured I’d get a pass with the stipulation of tint removal. Nope, CV boot on driver’s side need to be replaced and front pads/rotors replaced… but that’s not all, there was also of course… oil leaks… soooo off the to shop I went lol… first I had to get a duplicate key made though so I went to the local Audi dealership. When I’m there, the service guy is like “Ohhhh, that’s <insert previous owner’s name>'s old car… He put like $8k into it over the time he owned it…” the guy says lol… I say, “oh really, great!”… guy prints out the stack of service records from just the previous owner (i think I’m #3 on this car)… blah blah blah… i get the key later and off to the shop I go…
At the shop, I tell em to just go through the entire car and fix everything that can be fixed or replaced… Car goes up on the lift. I’d go through the entire list of what had to be replaced, but long story short it was a shit load of gaskets (requiring an engine and transmission drop/tear down), the front brakes/rotors, rear pads, and the advanced key system wasn’t working. Bill, slightly over $5k (thanks to a cool ass shop owner that has empathy lol), plus intake spacer kit from JHM, and other random stuff like Abt center caps for the S6 wheels… Car was out of my hands for the following 3+ weeks lol… towards the end I had to get an extra set of bolts for the intake spacer kit and the guys at JHM were spot on with getting those sent to me overnight so i could get them to the shop. There was an Audi event that I foolishly prepaid for, thinking my car would be done long in advance… nope… it was done, right on time lol… 2 days before I had to leave to go to an event at VIR, leaving 1 day for testing. I got it back Thursday I think. I got a check engine light after like 90-100 miles of driving lol… so back to the shop it went Friday morning before I was set to leave for the event.
Vacuum leak, and some code about an error in motor 2 in the intake manifold… They look through it and figure it’s just a small vacuum leak since the car is running perfectly otherwise… cleared codes, did more checks… nothing… I drive off into the sunset (not literally since it was too early in the day)… about 30 miles later, the same codes come up… so whatever, figure they’ll just go through the entire engine again and check all the hoses when I get back… .that was the plan anyway since they warranty their work (like all shops I guess)… So I head down to VIR… probably the best road trip i’ve ever taken and the longest I’ve ever driven by myself in single sittings… so comfortable and fast… so hard to stay within reasonable speed limit range, but i managed it…
Arrive at tech/registration for the PCC ACNA event and everything checks out great. get my stickers (car #999) <get it…? “NEIN! NEIN! NEIN!!!”… aka German Dikembe Mutombo lol>… but yeah, off to hotel… so many lovely cars there… porsche cup cars, so many audis, and a bunch of BMW M-cars… Off to bed…
Next day bright and early, registration, helmet pickup (ended up buying one by the end of the weekend), driver’s meeting, classroom time, etc… met my instructor… fkn amazing driver/teacher… J. Hoover PDAutowerks… First laps out I was timid since it was literally my first time driving on a race track… No big deal… he shows me the racing lines, braking zones, etc slow speed… I sped up as we went on in the first session but not much… after that he took me out in their A4 TTU car… Annnnd that was a life changing experience for me… Seemed like just about every other car out on the track at the time except for the Porsche cup cars, were holding him up as we went around the track… it was amaaazing lol… but anyway, i learned the proper lines and braking pressures, etc from those 3-4 laps riding…
Second session driving… I was wayyyy faster since I now had a good idea of what lines, braking, etc to replicate and more importantly because he was walking me through every step of the track with proper hand signals to relay brake and throttle pressures as we went, reiterating where I need to be looking as we go, safety of course, and pushing me to improve my times each lap we went along… So it seems that I may had impressed him a bit… but in the next sessions I hear that I gave him a scare here and there with how much we were on the edge and how fast we had picked up speed from session to session… pretty much by the end of the day i was passing hellcats and e46s with mediocre drivers like me… could smell their brakes burning as they tried furiously to keep from letting me pass… but alas, they could not keep us back forever lol… I can’t wait to figure out how to embed images so you guys can get the gist, as they had professional photographers there. I also took a bunch of pics of course since it was my first time with the car really since the few days after I’d bought it, and
because there were so many amazing cars there.
Second day, more of the same… it was wonderful to hear the tires squealing on their very limit as we carved the corners at well over 100 up through turns I think 6-8 and slightly under around turn 9. Again, more hellcat, M3, etc passing… the glorious aroma of the brakes heating up on the cars ahead trying to keep us at bay lol… now I understand why this car is so well appreciated by the owners, yet so loathed for the growing pains it forces you endure lol…
Anyway, the second session of the day, I go incredibly fast… and the instructor begins timing my lap… Unfortunately, he timed the 4th lap, and they cut us short with checkered flags down the back straight where we had previously gone 120-140 consistently each session as well as extremely fast around the last 4-5 turns. Sooo, I’m hooked on track driving now, but I don’t have a track car yet, so I was going to buy one… buuut wait… the S6 saga isn’t into stability quite yet…
I drive back home… everything completely fine except for the same CEL from when I left (thinking it’s a simple vacuum leak)… Runs flawlessly back just like it did there… all said and done, I had done just under 1000 miles from the time I picked up the car from the shop to the time I got back home. Planned to drop car off Tuesday morning to be checked over inside/out… again, running flawlessly the entire time except for rough cold starts… soooo the shop owner drops me off in a vehicle their testing before returning it to the customer.
Also, the Audi Exclusive carbon fiber lower rear diffuser shows at the office (YESSSS!!! SCORRRE!!!)… unfortunately it’s been fuckin impossible to find the carbon fiber trunk trim piece to match it. No dealership anywhere seems to have it I guess since it was so rare in the first place… maybe someday someone will find one in a back closet or lost in some german brothel… one can dream… anyway, I also ordered a piano black dash, pedal set, and extra springs all around from an RS6 off ebay. Waiting for the seller to enter the shipping cost so I can complete the trans. Anyway, then I get a text from the shop owner saying to Facetime his phone lol… I don’t like Apple, soo I called him and told him to send me a video. I’d post the video but I gotta upload it first… long story short… there’s plastic shit broken in the fuckin intake manifold and I got lucky that this was caught just in time and without any damage, etc… lol… sooo there’s a silver lining… I just need a new intake manifold I’m thinking… No big deal… Call around… Nobody has one… Then I get to JHM (the people I called first, but they’re so busy I just left a voice message). Send an email and Dru (thanks to you and all of the V10 guys at JHM, other guys, etc) responds confirming what I had been hoping was impossible… The part is on backorder from Audi direct and we have to wait at least 4 weeks until they come out with the redeveloped part… bright side is, this will probably fix the issue as I’m sure Audi will test and retest the fuck out of this new intake manifold before we get it. it just also means I’ll probably be without my S6 for at least 4 weeks lol… I paid for overnight shipping too lol… Maybe I’ll leave that so it can go right back out the door whenever it shows up lol… The exhaust, I was going to order it, and probably still will, but today’s events have just soured things a bit as I was just looking for a track car to buy/have built since i need to learn how to drive manual anyway (yes, I said it… I never learned how to drive manual lol)
Debating on an RS8 style honeycomb grill.