Time to love my S6 again.

A6 All/ S6 All
#1

My S6 was one of the first to have the full JHM overhaul, some years ago. What a killer car it ended up being! But I put too many miles on it. I was using it as my daily commuter, and after a while I just couldn’t keep up with the maintenance costs, and quite frankly the gas costs. So I garaged it it a few months ago, and that’s why I’ve been pretty inactive here the last few months.

I bought a new Kia Niro (plug-in hybrid) for my daily driver. I’ve honestly not even driven the S6 since last September. It needs work, but with a new reliable car for every day driving, the S6 became a low priority.

But now I’ve been left with the V10 void in my life for too long, and it’s time to breathe new life into the neglected S6.

Here’s the list of issues I need to address:

-The car overheats for some reason, especially in summer and especially at low speeds. The coolant gauge climbs to the top sometimes, and scares me that I’m going to damage the engine. Thermostat, maybe?

-It doesn’t hold coolant. I have to add a gallon of coolant about every 500 miles. There is no visible coolant leak anywhere, so I’m really hoping the car isn’t “burning” it. No idea what is causing this.

-The oil level seems to be quite low, and needs a quart every 500-1000 miles. Had some oil leaks fixed by JHM about 10k miles ago., but maybe the car is burning oil.

-Misfires. Bad. Cylinder 5, and I think another cylinder sometimes, and also a “random/multiple misfire” code. I am sure the injectors need work, as that is something JHM did not do because it was never an issue until now.

-The engine won’t go above 4k rpm, even though it pulls strong up to that point. Prior to this happening, the engine often stopped accelerating at the top of 2nd gear, and the car would just “hover” at 60mph until I let off the gas and let it go to 3rd gear, and then I could accelerate again. I suspect all of these issues are symptoms of the same problem.

I’m going to try to do as much of this work as I can, since I now have another car I can drive and don’t need the S6 to commute to work. Going to hopefully get started on this in the coming weeks, and I plan to chronicle it here, and hopefully get some tips from everyone along the way.

#2

Good to hear your getting back in the thick of things.

First thing. pull the codes see if there is any stored codes. That will tell alot.

The coolant can weep out in several spots. The two most famous are the coolant T but its more of a Y located just between the coolant tank and the valve cover so look there. Then look at the back of the motor there is the coolant cross over and that can be another weep point.

The loosing coolant and coolant temp issue might be related. Check your coolant temp sensor.

The oil consumption is semi normal. Expect to add 1 quart every 1000 miles. If its 500 miles then look to see what kind of condition your oil separator is in.

#3

Thanks Justin. I will definitely pull the codes, of which I’m sure there are plenty. CEL is on, by the way… and when the power cuts out ~4k rpm, the CEL flashes.

I’ve already had coolant leaks fixed multiple times, and the Y connector is a new brass one, so it’s not that, but there could be a cracked line somewhere. Also my reservoir may have cracked again (even though I just replaced it a year ago). I don’t see any coolant under the car when it’s parked, so it’s hard to pin down where the coolant is disappearing to.

You’re probably right about the oil consumption, it doesn’t seem to be consuming much more than usual, so it’s hopefully no big deal.

Hopefully I can get these problems resolved fairly inexpensively, and I think I can if I do most of the work myself. All of the primary maintenance concerns have already been addressed, so I think these issues are all fairly minor. With a little luck, maybe I can get this beast back on the road for under a grand.

#4

It seems like your biggest concern beyond the disappearing coolant would be injectors, especially if you haven’t replaced all of them. You’re probably due for at least a cleaning, but if you have the money to spare then I’d get FCP Euro OEM lifetime replacement injectors. That way you can mark it off your budget list forever after the purchase. You could get them cleaned too, but that’s all relative depending on who you can find and their price point per injector.

#5

FINALLY cleared out a spot in my garage to start working on the S6. First task, oil change.

Drained the oil, and it looks ugly. Like chocolate milkshake. Do I have coolant in my oil? Could this be the reason why my coolant is disappearing so fast?

Am I in for a WORLD of pain from this?!? What could be the cause? Please don’t tell me my engine is f***ed…

Not my picture, but this is pretty much the same as what my oil looked like:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/attachments/tech-general-engine/414392d1501469140-antifreeze-engine-oil-bullshit-1.jpg

#6

From what I can tell so far, it doesn’t seem like there’s oil in my coolant, just coolant in my oil.

#7

I should also add, this isn’t a daily driver anymore, so if this problem just means “gotta add oil and/or coolant every 300 miles, but otherwise no major issue”, then great. I’m OK with that.

The oil is definitely old - probably 8k miles and 2 years old at this point.

Also, one unrelated question, can someone point my towards a tutorial for putting the front end in service position? I’ve searched and searched but haven’t found much.

#8

Doing further research, I’d bet money that it’s a blown head gasket. The engine overheated a couple times (due to what I believe is a bad thermostat), which may have caused this. The thermostat is also on my to-do list.

Question - if it’s a blown head gasket, how big of a problem are we looking at? Engine need to be pulled? I’ve managed to avoid engine-out so far with this car, and I’d hate to have to do it now… but I guess if I do, it’ll be a good opportunity to preemptively replace some other engine-out maintenance items.

While the car has 140k miles on it right now, and was previously my daily driver w/ around 20k miles/year put on it, I’d expect it will have less than 2k miles/year put on it from now on. So, realistically, I’d be happy if whatever repair work I do for it only buys me another 20k miles.

I think I may drive or tow the car to JHM soon and see what they have to say about it, but I’m hoping to get some ideas here first.

#9

Looks like a blown head gasket to me. Engine out. :’(

#10

looking at what you posted.

It really sounds like a motor out. Its really hard to blow a head gasket on most cars so its kinda a hard call. Still it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to pull the motor. Pull out the cats and if you do have to pull the heads you will be able to seal up the head gaskets for the cams in the cam frame.

#11

Thanks Justin, I think you’re right about all that. I think there’s little doubt at this point that the engine needs to come out. Can anyone who’s had that done before give me an idea what that might cost / how many hours it’s likely to take JHM to do it? I’m working on getting some quotes from them still, but before I get too deep into this I at least need to get some idea if this is something I can afford to do right now.

I’m not sure if I can gut the cats - here in California, our cars have to pass emissions testing every 2 years. Has anyone here in CA gutted cats and still passed SMOG testing?

#12

I recently had my engine out to repair the dreaded oil leak on the lower section of the cam carriers/head (not sure what the actual name is) that leaks into the spark plug holes.

This was done at a local dealership and I had a number of things done while the engine was out but it looks like the cost of just the engine out and some basic repairs would be in the $8,000 range. I’m about 650 miles from JHM and this dealership had good reviews, but I will say that if I ever need major work like this done again, I’m going to JHM.

#13

8000 is dealer cost. But I JHM will be 1/4 of that.

You figure that motor out is 1000 in labor - 1400 in labor alone.

In CA they don’t do exhaust testing from what I think I know. Its just OBD testing and JHM should be able to help you with that.

#14

Good info, thanks guys. I’m going to take the car to JHM next week, at which point they’ll do a basic diagnosis and put together an estimate.

What I’m really worried about is that they’ll discover it needs additional VERY expensive work AFTER pulling the engine out… because that would basically mean I wasted ~$2k having the engine pulled, because I can’t afford to proceed with many thousands of dollars of additional work, when at this point the car is probably only worth $6-8k.

I’m praying that this ends up being a $3-3.5k problem, because if it’s more than that then I’ll have to find some other way to deal with the car.

By my best guess, here’s what I think the car needs, and my best guess on what it’ll cost:

Engine pulled - $2k-ish?
Head gaskets - $600-ish?
1 engine mount - $400-ish?
Thermostat and maybe water pump - $300-ish?

So that stuff alone takes up my entire budget, if my guesses on costs are remotely accurate (which they might not be)… that doesn’t leave any room in my budget for additional surprises :’(

Maybe I’ll get lucky and the problem isn’t as severe as we’re guessing… could coolant end up in the oil any other way besides blown head gaskets?

#15

JHM is usually pretty far and fast when it comes to technical ability to get to the bottom of stuff.

You could be getting coolant into the oil via the oil cooler. That is one of the ways people usually see it.

I think you can get in and out for your range 3.5 sounds about right if you have a worst case head gasket issue. Its a bit of labor to get into that. Still the up side is you would have about all but eliminated all of the issues these cars see. So there almost wouldn’t be anything to worry about at that point.

#16

Ever consider any of those liquid stop leak products? i don’t have any experience myself but could be a band aid solution to buy you some time. i’m also not sure what impact (if any) those products have on the motor.

#17

I haven’t looked into that, but maybe that would work? Not sure, I don’t want to try until I really know whether or not it’s safe. Seems to me like if it can stop a leak, it could also make a clog.

The leak, wherever it is, seems pretty severe though. At this point the car is going through a gallon of coolant every like 100 miles.