Hoping to join the ranks this weekend

[Calimus]

I've been a long time owner of VW's and have several but recently lost one due to electrical fire. In the process of trying to replace it, I've run across a 02' A6 2.7t and have been talking with the owner. If all goes well, I'll be driving the 300 miles to go do a final inspection and purchase this weekend. I've found this forum as well as the Tech sub forum extremely valuable. I was already fairly knowledgeable abou the 2.7t as I've lusted for an S4 for a few years. However, I think the A6 works better for me as more people seem to take much better care of their A6's.

So with that, I just wanted to the proverbial "AA" meeting intro, Hi my name is William and I'm and addict. I hope to enjoy the car, this forum and to even contribute here as well. But mainly I wanted to say thanks for putting all the info up, it's made me feel much better about this potential purchase.

[bigblue]

Welcome to the club! Be prepared for work on this. How many miles does this a6 have?

[guyb]

Hope you get it. is it 6speed or tip?

[Calimus]

It has 150k on it, but the owner has all the maint records and just did the timing service, motor mounts and a few other odds & ends. I have no fear of working on the car. I've rebuilt my 12v VR6, a few 16v's and have been dealing with my wifes 1.8t for a year now. I'm no stranger to the wrench.

As for the trans, it's a 6spd. I haven't grown up enough yet to the point where I can deal with an automatic.

[guyb]

Awesome. i got my 6spd a6 with right under 65k. Do you mind if I ask how much they want for it?

[bigblue]

Lol me either but I still own a tip. Ya 150k on original turbos doesn't sound very promising. Lol if you have to wrench on a 2.7 you'll wish it was as simple as a vr6. I love all my 8v cars but I love my audi the most. My friend is getting rid of his s4 because he doesn't want to pay for timing to get done. He just dropped 2k on wheels and 900 on suspension lol.

[Tamas]

Welcome to the ranks

[Calimus]

Guyb, if the deal goes down, it's for 6,600.

Blue - Yea, I'm not totally thrilled with 150k on the turbo's, but as long as they aren't smoking, I'm not going to worry too much. My daily commute to work is 8 miles round trip on a small set of country roads. So I won't be racking up the miles super fast and that should give me some time to start stocking up on parts. An I was just looking at the motor pull write up on the 2.7t, doesn't look that bad at all. Lucky for me, I have a garage, engine hoist, press and a few other goodies I've collected over the years. Hope I don't have to go that far with it, but fairly prepared if I do.

[euroazfck]

welcome to az!

[guyb]

Sounds like your well prepared for most things the 2.7 can throw you. 6600 isnt bad price wise. I stole mine at a little under 8 with the low mileage. What are your plans for the car. Software should be up there. I can't believe the difference I have just with APR stage 1.

[jeffp477]

like guyb almost 8 on mine with low miles for a 2000..


but welcome to AZ.... enjoy your stay..

[4ringAR]

There are people with over 200k on the original turbos on their 2.7t's. I have 125k on original turbos, chipped since 100k, still running strong. I have heard that doing piggy pipes after a chip not only frees up hp but prevents extra stress on the turbos since you are pushing them to higher psi. Win-win modification, except for the pain in the ass it is to do piggies.

Anyways, welcome and congrats on the new ride!

[Calimus]

The car was chipped less then 1k miles ago. It's also sitting on a set o fA8 reps with a bit of curbage, but I'm not too concerned about that. Plans, will prollie involve a slight lowering and a set of those piggies once I'm really ready to rip into things. I have my 88' Scirocco that I'm converting to Digi-1 +turbo that I desperately need to finish before I put much into the A6. My Jetta that the A6 is replacing was bone stock aside form lowering springs plus wheels. Not sure if I'll get the heavy mod bug with the A6 or not. We shall see. Looking at some of the pics posted around here, It's going to be very tempting to go crazy.

If this deal goes through, this is how I'll get her.

[jeffp477]

@4RINGAR = doing piggies, hard to take off and easy to do the piggies or hard to take off and hard to do the piggies? im thinking of doing this once i get another car for traportation...


so question is how hard is it to gut it?


sorry op for sort of jacking threads..

[bigblue]

Lol I bought my a4 back in march and put $4000 cash down on it to get the loan to be so low... since then I put $4000 into it (mostly for fun) You will get the itch to mod for sure.

[4ringAR]

@4RINGAR = doing piggies, hard to take off and easy to do the piggies or hard to take off and hard to do the piggies? im thinking of doing this once i get another car for traportation...


so question is how hard is it to gut it?


sorry op for sort of jacking threads..

Not terribly hard to gut them. Sawzall to cut them open. Power drill with a big bit, and like a chisel and stuff to hack out the guts. Clean it up with a wire circular bit on your drill and then weld it back up. My friend was the one who actually did it, but I mean it didn't take long to do compared to pulling the downpipes. Of course this is assuming you have drill, sawzall(hack saw would work too, but take a while), and can weld.

[8520]

Welcome.

Like others have said, do piggie pipes immediatly to help with the life of the turbos. If I would have done that, I might have saved my k03's from blowing up within the first 6 months of ownership.

[jeffp477]

Not terribly hard to gut them. Sawzall to cut them open. Power drill with a big bit, and like a chisel and stuff to hack out the guts. Clean it up with a wire circular bit on your drill and then weld it back up. My friend was the one who actually did it, but I mean it didn't take long to do compared to pulling the downpipes. Of course this is assuming you have drill, sawzall(hack saw would work too, but take a while), and can weld.

sounds doable.. thanks.. now im looking more forward to it, my buddy have a shop that i can use to lift the car and drop the engineand trans out, and im planning on doing stuff while its out..

to OP make a checklist or things to do ie maintenance wise and stuff that will help car last longer.. mods comes along the way...

[Calimus]

No worries about the thread jack. An info is good info.

Yea, will be making my list once I can see and test drive the car myself. From there, I tend to be a bit over organized. I have a giant whiteboard in the garage with all the cars/bikes listed and what Maint needs to be done and at what mileage some of the last maint occurred on. Then there are excel sheets for long term info.

[jeffp477]

No worries about the thread jack. An info is good info.

Yea, will be making my list once I can see and test drive the car myself. From there, I tend to be a bit over organized. I have a giant whiteboard in the garage with all the cars/bikes listed and what Maint needs to be done and at what mileage some of the last maint occurred on. Then there are excel sheets for long term info.

I got a whiteboard in the garage as well, listed my cars and what needs to be done.. fluid capacity and other info... really helpful..

[Calimus]

Whiteboards are exactly what a garage needs, that's for sure.

So thanks to everyone for the warm welcome. Hopefully, I'll be continuing here after this weekend.

Since I'm going to look at the car this Saturday, are there any things I should definitely check (eyeball) to something I can do while driving to make sure I'm not getting a ticking time-bomb?

I know to look for smoke on startup & rev for engine ware or turbo seals.
I know that under hard boost if I hear a set of dentist drills, then the turbo's are prollie shot
Check all the buttons & knobs
Is there anything else specific to this car that I need to check? I know all the general mechanical, but if there is anything I'm really missing, please feel free to point it out.

Thanks to everyone again.

[02 A6 2.7T]

Whiteboards are exactly what a garage needs, that's for sure.

So thanks to everyone for the warm welcome. Hopefully, I'll be continuing here after this weekend.

Since I'm going to look at the car this Saturday, are there any things I should definitely check (eyeball) to something I can do while driving to make sure I'm not getting a ticking time-bomb?

If you can find someone local with VCDS (VAG-COM) & a laptop, it's always a good idea to scan the car. It can help find many hidden gremlins which may come to haunt you in the near future. Lots of intermittent faults can be stored in the ECU/controllers without setting off the check engine light...

[jeffp477]

*secondary water pump or aux pump tends to fail its under the intake manifold, if pink liquid present it need a new one. (aux relocation pump kit is available @genuinevwaudi.com) =relocation kit cheaper than getting just the pump itself.

*valve cover gaskets tends to leak as well cause of non-breathable oil caps(buy the updated one purems.com sells it under $30) and clogged suction hose or pump. another spot for leaks is the cam plug,cam seals, and cam adj seals.

*throttle boot tends to crack coz its rubber(replace w/ samco or equivalent hose)

*engine mounts/snub mounts/trans mounts.(not sure how you gonna check them though)

[Calimus]

Thanks guy's. I have a vag-com and planned on scanning the car for the very reasons you mentioned. Also read about the aux water pump and planned on checking that as well. The VC gaskets were just replaced as well as the engine mounts, clutch and a few other maint items. So it's all looking pretty good. Thanks to all of you. Hope to be back late Saturday night with a shiny A6.

[EinSchnellAudi]

Welcome to the forum! Nice wheels btw

[Calimus]

Welcome to the forum! Nice wheels btw

Thanks. Hoping the ride quality is good, other wise, those wheels might be finding their way to the for-sale section.

[Calimus]

It is done. The A6 is now safely parked in my driveway keeping the two Scirocco's and the New Beetle company. It really stands out since it's the only thing in the driveway that isn't black. The drive back was awesome. It rides great, has plenty of power and damn can this big girl corner. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship built totally on Lust.

[Zachariah]

Welcome...you have arrived!

[bigblue]

SWEET man!!! Good to see you got her home in one piece! Now go through her with a fine tooth comb and start replacing the little things you see that are bad. One giant like $400 order. Thats how I usually start out when I buy something. My 91 cabby had a total of $900 in parts I ordered this summer for it... Give her a good clay bar and a wax man and enjoy!

[Calimus]

Yea, like any car, there are things to be done. The good news is all the major things were just done. (t-belts, tensioners, rollers, water pump, VC gaskets, Clutch, motor mounts, serp belt, all fluids flushed & changed and alignment). She does need tranny mounts, the headlights need to be polished up and a few other odd's & ends.

As for the claybar and such. My wife loves detailing cars and pretty much has everything to do it. She's already making plans to steal the car from me to do so.

[bigblue]

Wow I wish mine would clean the cars, I'm the one that gets stuck detailing all the dubs in the driveway... I mean the fact that 4/5 of them are mine doesn't make her bias at all though lol.

[Calimus]

Kinda of the opposite at my place. Most of the dubs are hers. She has the 87' Rocco, 89' Cabriolet, 03' Turbo S Beetle and an 04' Yamaha FJR1300. I have the 02' A6, 88' Rocco and an 05' FJR1300. The standing deal is, any of my toys that she cleans, she get to dry (I.E. - drive them to dry them) :)

On a side note, I've gone in and cleared all the codes from a dead battery issue the PO had, re-ran the car and re-checked (no codes = good), changed the temp display back to read Fahrenheit and fixed a few little lose panels and such. So far so good. Time for a drive.

[bigblue]

Lol we have an Absorber drying clothe for each car and the colors even match ;-) purple for the cabby, red for the jetta, blue for the audi, etc.

[Calimus]

Well, she's not that OCD about it, but pretty close. Re-aimed the xeons today because the PO put 8000k bulbs in. The are too blue to see shit with, so for right now I've aimed them up a bit (set them to 00020) so I can see more then 5ft in front of the car. I don't have to drive much at night so hopefully I can get a set of 4300k's in the near future and put things back to where they belong as well as be able to see where the hell I'm going.

I've also found a few other nagging issues, like the reverse assists system has bad sensors. I really hate the shriek of that system anyway, so I'm searching for a way to turn it off via the Vagcom. An some tranny mounts are in order. Going to try and get those ASAP since I don't want to beat up the new motor mounts and have to replace them in short order as well.

Oh and a question. My car has he in-dash 6 disk changer, which is nice, but I have a PhatBox I'd like to put in the car. Problem is, I don't see a pigtail where the changer in the rear should be. Since I have the in dash changer, is there no pigtail from the factory, or would this connect another way? If there isn't a pigtail or a way without running the full cable (found it on ECS) I'll just use my Ipod since I do have that adapter.

[coolgraymemo]

A car very similar to this broke my heart early this morning.

It was practically ripped from my hands in an extremely good deal.



but yea its nice. i will hopefully be on here one of these days.

[bigblue]

I lost a nice 07 gti with 40k on it to some punk kid the day I went to buy it. He ruined the car two days later.

[Calimus]

My path to this car wasn't swift. I wasn't even looking at Audi's when I started searching for a replacement to my Jetta. I looked at 7 or so other Jetta's, but they were all in way worse condition than the one I lost.




So after saying the hell with Jetta's, I started looking at S4's and missed out on one by a few hours. After that, I stumbled across some A6's and found the one I brought home. Just takes time and the willingness to be a bit picky. It also helps a ton to know what you are getting into and what things need to be done. I spent about 3 days reading everything I could on VWvortex & here at AZ before I even contacted the seller of my A6.

[coolgraymemo]

I made a thread about my dilemma.

I drove two hours to pick the car, up and the owner surprises me by telling me he sold it.

BTW he was asking $3500 and was willing to negotiate.

[Calimus]

I'm pretty sure that qualifies as "Dick Move of the Month". That truly sucks.

[coolgraymemo]

I was really pissed offed. I hadnt seen a 6 Speed C5 A6 in a while and when I saw this one i really liked it; then i saw the price.

I already had plans for it which is what bums me more.


good luck with yours.

btw, i really like those wheels that are on it.