Morning all, thought I’d pop in with a quick update on A6 BiTdi life.
Nothing much to report, it’s just hit 139k miles and still going strong, this beast really does cover long distances brilliantly with next to no effort. I’ve been thinking about getting the transmission oil changed for a while now, with quotes approaching the £1k mark when I first made some enquiries, but as the gearshifts was still smooth, I never really bothered with it... but I finally got it done at MidlandVW last week.
My first enquiry with them, they came back to me with £340 allin just for the oil change, as the genuine ATF they use is £40/L, and their system says 7 litres, but they would reduce the cost if it took less. Enquiringly about the strainer, they said the part itself was almost £240 with additional labour on top and it’s not really necessary to change it on these gearboxes, so on their advice, I left it out. In the end, the gearbox took 5litres, so the bill came to just over £260.
Any difference in the drive? Unsure if there’s a placebo effect here, but it definitely feels ever so slightly smoother on up shifts, no real difference on down shifts. One question I should ask them is if they reset anything on the gearbox ecu? I wouldn’t have thought it was part of the process whilst getting the oil changed, but the shift pattern has slightly altered in full auto mode, something I notice because I drive it everyday, the gear shifts up basically 1mph later than before, is it learning how I drive it again?...
I’m hopefully booking the rear bumper to be resprayed soon, it got a bit battered after 139k of abuse including 2 incidents of people going into the back of me in traffic, no real damage, just a few marks. And it’s started to flake away at the edges where it gets peppered by stones coming off my rear tyres.
