Just did a timing belt, water pump, serpentine belt, oil and filter today. Also cleaned up the headlights (one was pretty bad) and got rid of the orange reflectors in the headlights.

Will be keeping this thread as a record of it's trials and tribulations.

How tough is it to remove the orange blinkers? I wouldn't mind doing the same thing as it would be a cheap mod to do. I need to get some winter rims right now for the A6, so for today and tomorrow, I will take my truck as it has snow tires on it. I still took the A6 around my block, power sliding in the snow with all seasons on, and she was easy to recover from a slide. Very predictable behaivor even with the wrong tires for the conditions on her. Way better then our Outback was. You should enjoy the avant, not a powerhouse but not terrible by any means.

two ways to do it. One is to pull the lens from the housing. To do this you need to heat the sealant and peel the two apart, some people put the lights in the oven for a bit (on low temp), i prefer to use a big halogen work light and just work my way around the unit heating. Once you get it open the amber reflector just pulls right out.

The other way is to drill a small hole in the top of the lens and use a small pick to dislodge the reflector, then working through the bulb hole, use some sort of snips to gradually break the reflector into small pieces so it falls out the bulb hole.

I actually used one method on one headlight and the other on the other one, the breaking method takes less time, but pulling the lens and just removing it is more straightforward (although somepeople balk at the idea of having to reseal their lights -doesn't bother me).

Anyway, today I pulled the driver side front axle in order to replace a cracked out CV boot. Everything went fine, in fact I was surprised to hear after the fact how many people had trouble with the upper pinch bolt -guess I was lucky on that one).

Also got some new snow tires and had them mounted. Went with dunlop wintersport 3ds. I had them on my old GTI and really like the compromise between snow traction and dry handling (I have found "grippier" tires like blizzak ws-50's too squirmy in the dry). I had them go ahead and mount the bent wheel, Put it on the back and it doesn't seem to be a big deal. Certainly the new tires make a big difference, the old tires were severely out of balance (according to the vibrations) and one had a nail in it.

Driving the car right now and everything seems to be fine. Still have more on my list though-

Very happy with the car so far, both the a6 in general as well as the specific one I purchased. It's very comfortable and gets the job done, exactly what I wanted.

I've gone the oven route on four sets of lights...two for B5s and two for C5s. 8 to 10 minutes at 250 degrees and the lens pops right off. I sat the unit on a piece of hardwood so it didn't come in contact with the metal rack. Same to assemble...place the lens back in position and loosely fastened with a rubber band..heat for 8 to 10 and then remove, compress and put the spring clips back on.

Also replaced all the vacuum lines at the top of the manifold as the covering on the old ones was crumbling to dust.

nope, pulled out the orange reflectors

I bought the whole valve cover gasket set from ecs tuning with the intention of doing everything, but when I got in there and saw it was coming from the cam plug and everything else (including the cam adjuster on the front of the head) looked fine, I ended up just replacing the valve cover gasket and that one cam plug, and didn't even touch the other side.

Everything looks good so far.

Quote, originally posted by jasonknezo »

Any tranny issues with the mileage? have been considering a similar winter/all around transport. Cool thread.

When I first got the car I thought something may be up, the transmission shifts fine but it seems to lag a little when starting from a stop, that is why I decided to change the fluid and filter. That being said, the old fluid looked fine, there was not excessive **** on the magnets, and the filter and fluid didn't really change anything. I think this may just be the way it drives, it also may be more of a consequence of a hesitant throttle tip-in (which makes you give it more gas, which makes engagement more abrupt).

I'm not terribly worried about it.

Yup, forgot to mention I checked out the breather hoses and the suction pump a couple weeks ago.

FYI this car had 162k (and came with no service records) when I bought it, that did not deter me.

There are very slight differences between the 99s and the other 2.8s (00 and 01) namely being the radio and corresponding center console design change, and the exclusion of the heated steering wheel after 99. The facelift and 3.0 didn't come until 2002.

I wasn't really sure how the whole thing went together, but I picked up a squirted nozzle at the dealer to see what I could figure out. It looked like the old nozzle had broken off and a good amount was still in the squirter tube. After drilling it out, the new one fit in fine and functions as intended. I am keeping in uninstalled until I can get the correct rear wiper and cap to protect it however.

Quote, originally posted by SchickQuattroB5 »

Nice S5 you have tucked in the garage back there!

Took the avant down to southern connecticut last weekend, as I was pulling into the garage on the way home I noticed a pretty distinctive groaning/grinding noise. After checking under the hood it was definitely coming from the front of the engine. Monday I got it in the garage and got the whole front end off in order to get the accessory belt off. After doing that it became apparent that the bearings in the tensioner pulley were shot. Guess I should have replaced that when I did the timing belt a month ago, but I haven't seen many tensioner pulleys fail. In fact, i often just pop the seals off of them and regrease them, but I failed to do that this time around, and because it was already eating itself, I decided to replace the whole thing (which by the way they only sell as the whole tensioner assembly).

While in there I also came to a conclusion on my dead oil temperature gauge. I knew it was an issue with the sender, the question was were was the sender. I have heard to different sides of though, one being a basiic pinhead sensor on the block between the crank pulley and the ac compressor, and one being integrated into the level sensor in the oil pan. After a bunch of searching, no pin head sensor (or wiring for one) was found, and those pin head sensors are pretty much bombproof (while the level sensors are NOT) so at next oil change I will be replacing the sensor on the pan in hopes that cures my dead gauge.