Audi A6 Allroad

MatteH Oxford

MatteH Oxford

MatteH Oxford

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Joined
26 Jul 2010
Posts
1,722
Location
Wiltshire
One of these would suit me very well by the looks of things, it would mean I could run one vehicle for both work and towing a trailer with a horse in it. I'd only have to subsidise around £100-£150 month to lease one on top of the car allowance I receive from work.

But the C7 model is due to be replaced 2018? I can wait a while but was wondering if there is an alternative in the same ballpark i.e. 2500kg towing capacity and similar cost(s) overall?

:)
 
Whilst the A6 is due replacement next year, the allroad won’t immediately be released (muchlike the RS6 won’t be immediately available either).

There are currently some utterly ridiculous discounts available on C7 A6s through brokers, been looking into them for a friend recently. Have you looked into securing discounts, you might not need to subsidise quite so much as you think!
 
VW Touareg has an even higher towing capacity at 3500kg. Slightly higher running costs but the value proposition is staggering given that it shares most of its non-engine parts with the previous model Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne and now the Bentley Bentayga. It really is a proper luxury car. It’s just a shame no-one wants one.

Stable Vehicle Contracts - https://www.stablevehiclecontracts....g-3.0-v6-tdi-bmt-262-r-line-plus-5dr-tip-auto

And the equivalent allroad;

https://www.stablevehiclecontracts.co.uk/audi-a6-allroad-3.0-tdi-272-quattro-sport-5dr-s-tronic

I’m on my 4th allroad and they’re incredible cars. Even the unloved 218PS is decently quick. 272PS is the optimum for fuel economy as the 218PS needs to be thrashed to pull the car along. The BiTDi is pointless in the UK.

Just be aware that they are not cheap to run. You’re looking at £350 for an oil change at a dealer if you go with the 10,000 miles or annual servicing or £450 for the 19,000 mile/biannual service. And then £750 for the big service on the engine, DSG and differential at 38,000 miles/4 years on the 218/272PS cars. The BiTDi is £600 at 38,000 miles because the gearbox is sealed for life.

And definitely lease because the depreciation is staggering. A £66,000 list BiTDi with a few toys on it (Tech Pack Advanced, Parking Pack, Towing Equipment etc) becomes a £19,000 GFV at 4 years/72,000 miles on a PCP. OK, so you can get £15,000 off the list price without haggling but that’s still £750/month in depreciation.
 
Great cars, had one for a couple of months now. I’d als suggest buying approved used, some good deals to be had. Seem to be one of those cars which people don’t want or don’t know about. Mine is the 218 and it’s plenty fast enough for what it is. Only thing I think could be improved is the dsg. Prefer a normal auto box like the previous gen a6.
 
I did consider the Touareg, I don't really need the extra towing capacity and I'm sure I'd prefer the driving dynamics of the allroad for business use and non towing duties over a large 4x4 bus. But it seems like the Touaregs are quite a bit cheaper, definitely better value than its VAG stablemates on the face of things but with options (I'd consider the dynamic air suspension a must, along with adaptive cruise and the towbar if i'm spending that much anyway) they can work out quite eye watering too,

I kinda baulk at the idea of leasing for two reasons. I do all the maintenance work on my current vehicles (2 bikes, Mondeo saloon) hence it costs me a total pittance in comparison and I do enjoy it. Perhaps I should go down the route of leasing a ‘cheap’ saloon for work miles (15-20k pa) and buying a petrol 4x4 barge, one year of my annual allowance would nearly buy a reasonable one outright and the other two would likely cover a lease over three years on a saloon.

I could hire a horsebox for weekends but the hassle and frequency of use (at least 2x a month) means I'd rather have my own vehicle for this.
 
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[TW]Fox said:
It's not, it's actually the only way to get a decent autobox for reasons known only too Audi.
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I know that BMW, Jaguar etc. use the same base gearbox in various cars and it’s generally deemed to be a very good gearbox but some of the shifting in the BiTDi implementation is just downright horrible. It seems slow to select gears (which the 7-speed DSG certainly doesn’t) and if you drive with the gearbox in dynamic mode to counter the sluggish shifting then some of the full-throttle/kickdown downshifts are extremely rough. I’ve had a 204PS S-tronic, a 245PS S-tronic, a 272PS S-tronic (definitely the best compromise between go, economy and comfort) and currently a BiTDi. The gearbox/engine combination on the current car is by far the worst of the four, although it’s still a great car, and incredibly effortless when it comes to overtaking cars on a-roads.

I’m sure the gearbox is better suited to other engines and tunes, I just don’t enjoy it as much in this implementation as the S-tronic with the 272PS motor.
 
WJA96 said:
I know that BMW, Jaguar etc. use the same base gearbox in various cars and it’s generally deemed to be a very good gearbox but some of the shifting in the BiTDi implementation is just downright horrible. It seems slow to select gears (which the 7-speed DSG certainly doesn’t) and if you drive with the gearbox in dynamic mode to counter the sluggish shifting then some of the full-throttle/kickdown downshifts are extremely rough. I’ve had a 204PS S-tronic, a 245PS S-tronic, a 272PS S-tronic (definitely the best compromise between go, economy and comfort) and currently a BiTDi. The gearbox/engine combination on the current car is by far the worst of the four, although it’s still a great car, and incredibly effortless when it comes to overtaking cars on a-roads.

I’m sure the gearbox is better suited to other engines and tunes, I just don’t enjoy it as much in this implementation as the S-tronic with the 272PS motor.
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Audi do seem to have hired the apprentice to do the gearbox mapping on the A6/A4 ZF autobox with the 3L TDI, the ZF box is available in the A4 with the 272ps diesel but the changes are all over the place what is strange is in the Q7 with the same engine and gearbox is fine. BMW have a consistent experience through out the full range of cars.
 
MatteH Oxford said:
Considering two year old Touaregs/Allroads to add to the mix, looks like £25k would cover requirements for Touareg.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201712182142382?year-from=2015&radius=1500&sort=price-asc&model=TOUAREG&advertising-location=at_cars&make=VOLKSWAGEN&postcode=sn153uw&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly New&onesearchad=New&keywords=suspension&page=1

The Two/Three year depreciation on such a vehicle looks very manageable.
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Just do your servicing homework VERY carefully on the Touareg. It’s a “proper” 4-wheel drive system so when you replace a tyre, if there is more than a 3mm tread depth difference, you have to replace all the tyres.

If you get the version with the panoramic roof then it needs a £500 sunroof service every 2 years. But that’s the same for the allroad.

The Centre differential service on the Touareg is also very expensive, and this is a difficult car to work on yourself. If you are considering a used Touareg, definitely hang about on the mytreg forums as they know everything you need to be aware of on there. You should also allow for higher fuel usage on the Touareg. I got about 35mpg out of mine compared to 43 in the bigger engined allroads.

And the air suspension is very complex and expensive if you need to fix it out of warranty. All that said, it was one of the best vehicles I’ve ever owned. I just think the allroad is better.
 
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not really compable though is it, a toureg and allroad. Toureg is like a cut price discovery and has a serious bad rep over the years wrt reliability. The allroad until recently was a bit of an oddball with no apparent competition.
 
mikeh501 said:
not really compable though is it, a toureg and allroad. Toureg is like a cut price discovery and has a serious bad rep over the years wrt reliability. The allroad until recently was a bit of an oddball with no apparent competition.
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As far as I'm aware the v70 cc was around before the allroad, with the v90 cc around now.
 
probably wasnt a lot in it when they were introduced, but i dont think most people understood what they were, and perhaps still dont.
 
mikeh501 said:
not really compable though is it, a toureg and allroad. Toureg is like a cut price discovery and has a serious bad rep over the years wrt reliability. The allroad until recently was a bit of an oddball with no apparent competition.
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The Touareg was raised because the OP asked about new cars that are cheap to lease that had a towing capacity of at least 2500kg. The Touareg fits that bill. He then changed the goalposts and decided he wanted to buy a 2-year old one and do his own maintenance. At that point I really did feel obliged to try and point out that they could both be ferociously expensive to run.

As regards to it being a cut-price Discovery with a bad reputation for reliability I would say no “quality” manufacturer has as bad a reputation for reliability as JLR. The issue with the Touareg is that it’s really a Range Rover competitor at Freelander money. When people buy them used they expect them to cost Golf money to fix and when they discover that only 20% of VW dealers are equipped to handle them for service (normal VW dealers don’t have the high capacity lifts to get them off the ground) and the spare parts are priced at Porsche Cayenne levels (because they’re the same parts and you wouldn’t want VW dealers undercutting OPCs would you?) then all of a sudden the servicing and running costs look massive compared to the purchase price.

It’s the same image issue that the VW Phaeton had. Fundamentally the Phaeton is the same car as the Audi A8 and the Bentley Flying Spur. The Phaeton and Flying Spur are so alike that they actually share the same chassis - look at the c-pillar on the Phaeton and the Flying Spur and you’ll easily see they are the same base body. The Phaetons engines, systems and chassis were designed to be the best car in the world. And it’s REALLY good. The problem is it has no image at all. It’s an image black hole. People aspire to an Audi A8 and understand the values that make Bentley special but the Touareg just looks like a longer, wider, Passat. Likewise the Touareg is a Q7/Cayenne/Bentayga. On the current Touareg and previous model Cayenne, you could actually take the doors off a Cayenne and bolt them straight on a Touareg. You can bolt them onto a Bentayga and they will fill the holes in the body shell perfectly but the skin shape is different. They are all built in the same factories. But the image of the various cars is very different.
 
I was thinking more of buying at two years old, taking advantage of the remaining 1 year of warranty to hopefully guard against it being an unfortunate lemon despite test driving and inspecting it, then maybe selling on and buy another 2 year old example after 2-3 years.

I think you'd have to be extremely unlucky to suffer any major fault in years 2-5, and I wouldn't necessarily be looking to be undertaking servicing or major maintenance myself (apart from maybe the odd small fix), I just mentioned that's what i do currently as: 1. I can 2. I'm a miser :D 3. Leasing is very expensive in comparison to what I currently do, despite being able to afford it.

After 3 years of ownership, doing the miles i do, it looks like the resale at 5 years is around £15k for a Touareg, so 10k over three years, plus normal servicing etc is going to be far, far cheaper than leasing a new vehicle over three years, something like in excess of £25k amortised with the initial rental and servicing etc inc
 
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