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

hey man, still have the car?

#3

I do! But it’s just been sitting in my garage for the last year, it’s been a low priority to work on it lately

#4

I found coolant in the oil, so I almost certainly need new head gaskets. But I haven’t taken it to JHM for a full diagnosis yet.

#5

The overheating would be my guess as to why coolant is getting in the oil.

#6

the symptoms might not be the same problem but might have caused the main issue which is coolant loss. when you have a misfire and drive on it, the cylinder pressure is increased dramatically which left untended to can blow a headgasket and even worse crack a cylinder liner. the car not revving past 4k is because the car is in limp mode but it seems like the motor might be hurt.

if coolant is in the oil, id be very weary of the condition of the bearings. might be cheaper and easier to grab a motor from a dismantler with a limited warranty then roll the dice with that one

#7

If there is ANY coolant in the oil. it’s for sure a no start no drive. you can pull the oil out and put in cheap oil to inspect but there are a few odd things going on.

Here is what is odd. You said its loosing coolant but the oil is low. That is very odd. It tends to let you think there might not be a big amount of coolant going into the oil or none at all.

The 4k is the limp mode limit. So check you codes and post them.

To check to see the health of the motor do a compression and leak down test. You can buy or rent those tools quite cheaply. Those two things are going to be the best starting point.

Before you do anything I would do a comp test and then a leakdown test. If you have a blown head gasket that should help tell you there.

The overheating could be that your fan control module is bad and the fans are not turning on . I can tell you how to test that. but start with the comp and leak down test first.