Why so many short life parts?

[Hy Octane]

I gotta say, having owned a fair amount of cars over the years, this RS6 is by far, hands down, the worst built car I've ever owned. I have never had any other machine, BMW. Mercedes and even three previous Audis that had so many components fail so early..

Last night the Alternator did its dance at just over 80k which seems to be the average burnout time for this part.. .. If I hadnt checked my gauges as regularly as I do, it would have stranded me on the way home from work at 3am.

Transmissions, DRC, fuel tanks, seals galore, dash clusters, Thermostats, multiple sensors, starters, control arms, leaking intercoolers and the list goes on..

My old 1994 S4 still has the original fuel tank, gearbox, cluster, control arms and suspension after 140k..In fact, aside from CV boots and an aux water pump, its all still as built 17 years ago..

Why in the world does this supercar seem to be laden with a huge amount of cheap, short lifespan parts that are known by Audi to be defective yet they still expect us to repeatedly replace these defective designs at full cost..

It really bothers me that Audi doesnt acknowledge this and at least offer to share the costs of their bad design work.. I mean, who ever heard of having two or more transmissions in a new car after only 50k miles and have them act like its normal?

Rant mode off..

[hahnmgh63]

In my case at 67K now the only thing that ever went bad on my car was the passenger side intercooler. My DRC was in good condition when I took it in for the recall which I decided to dump in the trash bin a week later. Everything was good on my car when I pulled the engine/tranny which was because I broke a downpipe stud trying to remove them to gut the pre-cats. And one thing lead to another and $8K plus later (not counting my hours of labor) I'm back on the road, but better than ever now.

[johnnie27]

40,ooo miles in oz

running APR tune 6 years now

no issues

replaced plugs, 2 x cv boots, many pads, and fluids, inc tranny fluid

no issues outside of wear and tear, only had to recently re-adjust the front door handle

happy days here, sorry to hear of your bad luck..merry christmas ...

[4everRS]

My TC went around 80k. Alternator regulator 10k later. A couple control arms replaced. For me, the arms are a normal wear item as I have dealt and seen this in many other makes and models. Also, stiffer suspension, harder accelerations and braking is bound to make those go faster than other items.

The problem I have with the car is how the assumption is commonly made that only a dealer knows how to work on the car. There's no doubt its much tighter than other cars, but there are a lot of good shops out there that don't charge high rates, and still do a good job.

Ben has said it before. An $85k car new may depreciate like any car over the years, but it will always have $85k type service costs.

[LIRS6]

105k, owned since new. DRC (ditched for Stasis), torque converter (under warranty), pass side intercooler (post warranty, replaced by moi), trunk latch (under warranty), headlight switch (under warranty), one upper control arm (replaced by indy).

Those have been my car's issues.

I've never owned a daily driver this long - I hold my breath every time I drive this car, but at the same time it leaves me breathless.

Hy Octane - I have read of your trials and tribulations with your car for years, and have often wondered what gave you the cause to hang in there with your RS6.... I think I know the answer.

Good luck

[CornersWell]

I have about 65K on the RS6. Major repairs have included the alternator, TC and DRC. And, why can't Audi make control arm bushings that last longer than 20K?

Generally I believe that the more you try to eke out of a car, performance-wise, the more it requires maintenance. And, the more failures, as the components take more abuse. However, my car doesn't get hammered by anything more than daily driving duties.

I'm used to BIG maintenance costs with the Ferraris, but this is design and component failure. Ingolstadt ought to be ashamed...

CW

[QuattroRS]

80000 miles of driving a RS6=priceless

Just think about all the other POS you could have had.

[PixieVC]

Some people have good luck - some not so good. It seems some cars are relatively problem-free, and others are a constant source of headaches, and few straddle the middle ground... there's huge inconsistency in terms of reliability, and to an extent that's something you will always have variances in when you have a hand-built product. You can do QA til you're blue in the face, but it's not possible to catch every quality mishap, mistake, torque spec on every bolt, connectors on every connection, and ensure that every part that goes into the car - some 100,000ish disparate parts, made in different factories, with different quality control teams - are perfect.

I am crossing my fingers and hoping that the RS6 I have is one of the relatively trouble-free ones. The maintenance records of the car would seem to bear that out. Replaced under warranty: power steering pump, auxiliary water pump, several oil seals, a few control arm bushings, and both front axles. That's it, for a 100,000 mile car. It runs perfectly, without headache or issue, and while I know that every time I turn it on - I cringe a little and wait for the check engine light to appear, I also hope and know that the car was well taken care of, loved, treated to a garage every night, and driven in a benign environment (California weather) - and all that goes a long long way to ensuring the car's reliability over the long term. I would think that cars subjected to large temperature swings - such as those in areas where it regularly snows, the cars exposed to things like road salt, and don't have a covered and heated parking area are inherently more prone to failure... temperature cycling alone over the span of years can loosen wiring connections, fatigue metals with different expansion/contraction coefficients, cause things like oil leaks to occur... etc etc.

End of the day, it's just the luck of the draw.