A4 estate 2.5tdi V6 intercooler replacement?

[Stroud]

Hi,

New here, a few months back i got my 2003 A4 estate v6 2.5tdi quattro and enjoy it a lot. I used to have a 1.9tdi estate of the same year till it died, so this seemed a 'sensible' replacement.

Back to the point at hand

The passenger side intercooler has had the plastic pop off the bottom and as such needs replacing, im reluctant to do a like for like replacement just for the same to happen down the line.

The drivers side intercooler is all alloy, is this standard or was the replaced before my ownership? If it has been replaced is there a likely model Audi it came from so i could get the same for the passenger side? Or any all alloy for the passenger side?

Failing that i was thinking of getting rid of both and replacing with a front mounted intercooler (with a link i could not post)

I'm not a mechanic but i'm OK with my tools, replacing the standard intercooler is easy, what i want to know is if there is something that has been tried and tested that will pretty much bolt straight on (minus a bit of cutting to the bumper)? Want to know if there is something my non mechanic mind hasn't thought of.

Also anything worth doing while bumper is off and doing this?

Any recommendations are welcome.

Thank you

(Image will be fairly useless if it works, just trying to get to grips with the forum)

 

[DieselJake]

Darkside sells some hard pipes to get rid of the originals, I've got a larger side mount intercooler and pipe work but not sure how straightforward it would be fitting this to a 2.5tdi. Allot of people just use generic universal intercooler kits off eBay.

 

[frankc]

I believe the early 2.5tdi v6 had all alloy side mount intercoolers, could've been the late B5 or early B6. Chris @adamss is your man there!

 

[Stroud]

Thanks for the replies. I'd rather just replace with an all alloy I think, I'd like do the front mounted but just sceptical not knowing what work would be involved. Recently moved house so my garage and tools are upside down!

 

[Stroud]

I believe the early 2.5tdi v6 had all alloy side mount intercoolers, could've been the late B5 or early B6. Chris @adamss is your man there!

Do I just message him and ask? Am new here.

 

[desertstorm]

You won't get hold of Chris he seems to have disappeared off the forums.
Cheapest way to fix it will be to source a second hand IC from Fleabay or a breakers.
I thought all the standard intercoolers had plastic tops and bottoms. The RS intercoolers were all alloy.
A universal FMIC with piping would probably cost you around £150

 

[DieselJake]

Think I misread the original post and thought it was the plastic piping rather than the core, all standard side mounts do have the plastic tops and I've got an original and a larger full metal one, this is basically the bigger one I've got with the pipe's if it's any good to you:

The original looks similar but half the size and plastic end caps.

 

[LayerzA3]

I'd be interested to know if the "taco taco" or genuine larger FMIC's fit. I have the all metal IC's on my 2.5 and I understand they came as standard on allroads?
Might be worth just having a quick check on ebay.

Jumping back I am also interested if the bigger FMIC's do help things out at all with IAT's