Remember, I’ve only driven the car 160 miles, with 40% of the journey having been through thick snow and 80% of it on unfamiliar roads, but I can only see myself loving this thing even more, the more I drive it.
Ok, so… I’m 160 Miles into V10 RS 6 ownership which was the journey from Hull, where the last owner lived back to my house, and I already know I’ve found the absolute most perfect car for me, the C5 RS 6 couldn’t claim this title, as much as I liked it, it didn’t even come close.
I had given that title to my previous D2 S8. It was ‘only’ 360 BHP, but the build quality in it was stunning, the Recaros a dream, and overall it was a better compromise of build quality/comfort and speed than the RS 6 ever was. To be frank, the only reason I kept hold of the C5 RS 6 for so long was because it was Sprint Blue, low mileage and therefore incredibly rare and I knew I wouldn’t have easily replaced it with a like-for-like example if I let it go, and then regretted it. Moving on...
Performance
***OMG***
On a slightly damp road, at 60MPH, I gave it about 70% throttle, all four wheels lit up. That will be the 757 BHP and 967 NM of torque then. It is an animal.
Then there is this road locally that I know really well, I always mash the pedal to the floor in the plus on it, in this, I did it about ¾ throttle, and I had to let off so much sooner than I would have had to in the plus, as it had got to speeds I wasn’t comfortable with doing on that road, in the plus my foot would have been in that carpet for a little while longer, but in the C6, as expected but still not really prepared for, I had gone so much further so much sooner.
Ride
In comfort mode, I would find this ride acceptable in an A8, let alone an RS 6, to compare, the ride in my RS 6 was sometimes genuinely embarrassing when carrying family it was that rock hard, admittedly, it was on H&R coilovers, but that’s how I bought it and therefore only comparison I can give. The ride quality on the C6 with DRC is sublime.
Handling
I can’t comment yet, I haven’t been able to test it out, but, who buys a two ton car for handling?
Brakes
I have the optional 420MM ceramic option on my car, I haven’t really had a chance to test them properly yet, but I would say they are probably not as good as I expected until you get some heat into them. I’m not writing these off yet, I just haven’t had a chance to fully test them.
Interior
In my opinion, the C5 felt cheap inside, compared to my D2 S8 and compared to an E39 5 Series which is the C5’s direct rival. I could also never get truly comfortable in the seats as they didn’t provide enough adjustment or support, and although, I had a low mileage car, you always heard creaks from bits of trim and overall this was my biggest complaint with the C5. Maybe I’m not being fair to it? With the harder suspension the trim pieces were probably being put through a lot more stress and hardship than Audi had ever intended for them to.
The C6 interior, however, is sublime. I am going to use that word a lot – sublime, as it describes the C6 so well. The seats, FINALLY! I’ve found seats that give me D2 S8 levels of comfort and support; I love them, well done Audi. Buckets would have been nice, but then you would lose the memory seat function.
Gadgets
The ones I found most useful were.
Adaptive Cruise Control – Set a speed, and the car will use radar to slow down if it detects a car, or traffic and follow a safe distance behind it, once the car has gone it will speed up to the speed you’ve set, and it works wonderfully, there is no sudden braking, or jerky acceleration, it is just the way I would do it as the driver, although you can change the behaviour of the adaptive cruise control from ‘Comfort, Dynamic, Sport’, I left it in ‘Dynamic’.
High Beam Assist – This really works, it puts the high beam on when there are no cars about, and turns them off as soon as it spots a car that you are approaching, or is coming the other way, and everytime it had turned the main beam off, before even I had spotted the approaching car, it also dips the lights in town by taking information fed from the Sat Nav.
Looks
I haven’t even seen the car in daylight yet as I arrived in Hull in the dark, and left for work this morning in the dark, and will get home tonight in the dark, so Sunday will be the day I see it in all it’s glory. But when I stopped for fuel, I just did not want to get back in, people who say the C6 ‘hasn’t got arches’, clearly haven’t seen one, it makes the C5 look weedy, well, the saloon certainly does.
Overall, I am absolutely chuffed to bits with the car, and the purchase experience, I bought the car from Liam, a true enthusiast who arranged for his Swissvax guy to detail it for me pre collection and then gave me £300 cash to use towards a wheel refurb, he was going to have it done for me, but I couldn’t wait any longer and wanted to collect it straight away, although this was no fault of his own he insisted handing me the cash to get it done as wanted the car perfect for me.
Sorry, I went on a bit. But the car has just blown me away. It is EPIC. If I give the C5 RS 6 a 6.5/10, the D2 S8 would get an 8/10, and the C6? A solid and much deserved 9/10.
Edited to add: I forgot one of best parts, the shotgun/flutter/V10 fart on gearshift noise is to die for.
27/01/13
Edited to add photos and part two of my thoughts after having done more miles.
img]http://i665.photobucket.com/albums/vv19/AmarS8/a635a020ec9b63d02f7d5a19db2717d7.jpg[/img]
PART TWO
After driving the car some (a lot) more today, I can now comment on the way it handles/stops.
When I owned the C5, I always had thoughts of how an M5 would have felt through a certain corner, and the steering used to frustrate me sometimes, it was so numb and lacking of any feel, it gripped well but that was about it. The C6, however, with the suspension in Sport mode is great. This is the first Audi I've driven with DRC and the 60/40 rear biased quattro split, and I am so so impressed at how flat and well it goes around corners for a car that weighs what it does, that I cannot see myself ever having dirty thoughts about an M5 ever again. The steering does not feel disconnected or numb at all. I am surprised that others haven't commented on how well the C6 handles/feels through corners. Just to point out, I wasn't on a track, that might be a different story, but I was on roads I knew very well and regularly drove on with my old RS 6, and the handling from C5 to C6 has been transformed, just like pretty much everything else.
Brakes - I was glad I had these today when I realised what speed I was getting to corners on country lanes at, and then remembering how much the car weighed. They didn't once fade, and just got better the harder I drove and the hotter they got.
The only thing I would change, and it's not a complaint as it's such a small thing is, I feel the DRC should automatically go in Sport mode when you select 'Sport' on the gearbox, because I've been stuck behind slow traffic on country lanes once or twice now, and when the car(s) turns off instead of just flicking it into sport on the gearbox, I first have to fiddle with the MMI and put it in Sport before I go, it only takes a few seconds, but it would be nice to just 'point and shoot'.
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Originally Posted by JSRS6
