PWDRSKR

Thought I’d start a new thread on the purchase odyssey for our new A6 Allroad. I’ll probably use the thread to chronicle upgrades and modifications. I hope to have a long “relationship” with our new allroad, similar to the one I’ve had with our soon to be sold B8.5 allroad (listed for sale in the Marketplace now for a really competitive price if I may say so myself - PM me if interested). Initially I thought I’d need to sell the old car before buying the new one, but I’ve sorted that out and its not as urgent as I’d initially thought.

Now tothe purchasing / ordering saga. As I’d initially posted, we placed an order for a ‘21 A6 Allroad all the way back on January 3rd. With this purchase, I wanted to stick to the exact car we wanted. The last two purchases, the aforementioned B8.5 allroad and our B9 RS5, we compromised a bit in order to get a car. Compromises were on color only, but still, they were compromises. So I promised myself I’d not repeat that this go round. We weren’t in any great hurry either. The B8.5 runs like a top and I admit to a bit of an emotional attachment to the car after all the upgrades and miles driven. So why sell/upgrade? 8 1/2 years in one car is by far the longest I’ve ever driven / owned one car and it was getting a little long in the tooth. Technology has vastly improved and frankly, the added luxury of the A6 line are pretty nice.

Options selected on the new A6 allroad:

• Florett silver
• Black w/rock grey
• Agate Grey Birch
• Black optic
• Luxury pkg
• Black cloth headliner

At the time I thought I’d ordered early enough in the model year there’d be little chance of issues or delays getting the car. Boy was I the fool. Audi has repeatedly delayed the projected delivery date over the last six months, without notifying my sales rep I might add.. What initially was an end of June projected delivery date, became early July, late July, early August….you get the picture. Last week I checked in with the sales rep as I’d not had an update in a while. Audi has had several promotions running in April and May ($2,000 AoA buyer credit, low interest financing) Iwanted to take advantage of but couldn’t because no car.

Well, surprise, surprise, Audi had delayed the car again, this time the most egregious yet, END OF SEPTEMBER! Not only that, the model year was changed from a ‘21 model year to a ‘22 model year! WTF indeed! Nine months after placing the order! The sales rep was as bewildered as I, his only explanation (conjecture as Audi provided no actual explanation) was that the choice of the Black Optics package was the root cause behind all the delays. His rationale was he’d placed orders for other A6 Allroads after I had placed mine that had already be delivered. The only difference being the Black Optic package. I also have seen other Audiworld members post on their new Allroads, ordered months after I had, and already received. W…T…F?!?

What’s a desperate enthusiast to do? I started trying to search other dealership inventory outside of my immediate area. Audi makes this nearly impossible to do of course. There is no national search option. If the specific zip code is known, one can search there. But that is not efficient, plus who wants to figure out zip codes on the off chance the car desired is on their lot. I finally resorted to setting up an account at Edmunds.com as that would in theory give me a national search option. Found three cars that met my desires, one in the original silver, the other two in white. Other options the same. Emailed my sales rep with links to the three cars and asked if he’d try for a dealer trade. He called me and did the search in the Audi system (employees can search nationwide). He found the two white cars, and a silver one at a different dealership than the one I’d found. Here’s where I start to feel (a little) guilty. Our sales rep reached out to the dealership with the silver car, but he told me it would be unlikely they’d respond before the long holiday weekend was over. His suggestion, I contact them myself and try to arrange for an out of state purchase. He essentially gave up a sale in order to help me get the exact car I wanted. This despite the efforts he’d put in up to now. Granted, a few phone calls and emails isn’t that much effort, but still, he lost a sale and that means lost income. He even gave me the strategy to use to talk the other dealership into selling to me.

I contacted the new dealership, explained up front what I was after and asked if they’d sell me the car. And….drum roll….they agreed! The torture is over! Or nearly over. We’ve set up the purchase and financing over email and the phone. Paperwork arrived yesterday, which I’ll complete and send back today. All I need to do now is get the car here. My closest friend live near the selling dealership, so I’m going to have him pick up the car once the deal closes. I now need to decide if I’ll have the car shipped to me or if I’ll fly out and drive it home. Can anyone recommend a reliable car transportation service?

I’ll post some photos when i get the car in hand sometime n the next couple weeks. Really looking forward to starting a new love affair with and modding the A6 Allroad. Up first:

• A CETE suspension control unit
• New shoes. I’m trying to determine if a 20x10 et 30 wheel mounted with 275/40/20 (8-12mm closer to suspension, 22-26mm added poke) or 285/35/20 tires (12-13mm closer to suspension, 26-27mm added poke). not sure how much room I have to work with. It either of these work, I’ll put the Vorsteiner V-FF 104 wheels currently on our RS5 on the allroad. RS5 will be getting V-FF 105s in about a month
• Tune. This one is limited option wise. ABT is the only option as far as I can tell. Nobody else has, or even is in development, an A6 Allroad performance tune. ABT is legit of course.
• Ceramic coating. I may tackle this myself. Then again, maybe better to let the professionals handle this.

BlurredLines

Wooo! Congrats, That's great you managed to track your Unicorn down. Can't wait to see what happens

Omegafiler

I've also tried ordering and "patiently" waiting, but that just doesn't work for me. Especially now with all of the manufacturing delays. Either way, congrats on the new ride and enjoy!

PWDRSKR

Thank you! Next step is to get here. Going to ship it, covered, I think. Need to find a reputable/reliable shipping company...

PartsByTopher LLC

Looking forward to seeing this one land, been a long journey!

One other tune you may want to look into is Burger Motorsports JB4- I believe it may be a direct fit given that the S4/5 share the same powertrain.

PWDRSKR

Thanks. For reasons I’m not entirely sure of, I’m uneasy with piggy back systems. Although ABT is also a piggy back system it would seem if I understand it correctly.

Turboale

​​​​I used plycar, very professional, covered truck, my A6 was probably the cheapest car in the truck. Probably not the cheapest shipper but had a top notch experience.

PWDRSKR

Thanks! I decided to use the same company the dealership uses. Willis Transport, I think. Not the cheapest option I've looked at, but not the most expensive either. $1350, enclosed. 2-4 day transit time depending what other cars on also on the same transport. So it'll be about a week from today before it gets here (getting detailed, window tint, and PPF this week). Shipping Friday.

My current question/decision is around the ABT piggy back tune. I've never gone the Piggy Back route and am wondering about how it compares to the flash tunes (e.g. APR). Questions I have:

1. Install: is this something a shop has to do or could I make the necessary connections? Seems like I aught to be able to make all the connections myself. Is there fore to it than that?
2. Beyond HP and torque, do these mod types also improve other things like the accelerator tip delay, for example.
3. Anyone know if JB4 make a C8 Allroad version?

PWDRSKR

Delivery day arrived bright and early, Monday morning! The enclosed delivery truck rolled up at 7:30 AM (1/2 hour early). I'm an early riser and heard the truck pull up. Thirty minutes later our new A6 Allroad was parked in our driveway. Gorgeous! Every option and color we'd picked back in January when we ordered through Audi. As I've written in other posts, we ended up having to find the car ourselves thanks to Audi repeatedly pushing back production / delivery. I decided to find the car myself when Audi not only pushed back delivery again, but changed the model year to 2022! Not that I'm against MY 22 cars, I just didn't want to wait that long. Anyway....

Initial impressions:

• Love the step up in luxury the A6 level brings. Power steering wheel w/memory, extended leather, easy entry seats (on by default), etc. etc, etc. Our RS5 is certainly nice, but there is something added with the A6
• The A6 allroad is noticeably larger than our former B8.5 allroad. I knew it would be of course, but now that is is here, I was mildly and pleasantly surprised at the noticeably larger interior. Especially now that we have two large dogs!
• The different colored wheel arches are painted in a gloss black vs. the matte grey of past allroads going all the way back to the early 2000s models. I prefer a matte to gloss. so might get the different colored accents wrapped. I'll wait to see if it grows on me.
• The car needs to be lowered ~1 - 1.5 inches. This of course if personal. I have the CETE suspension control module on order, so this will be addressed in short order.
• I like the design of the Black Optics five arm wheels, though two things push me to an aftermarket option (aftermarket wheel TBD):
  1. They have a gloss finish (I prefer matte hear too),
  2. Width. I prefer a wider tire for aesthetics. I know wider tires in general give worse traction than a narrower tire. I ran/run a 10" wheel on the prior allroad and our current RS5 with no noticeable problems
• Use of the all touch screen system will take some getting used to. I'll preface this by saying I don't immediately use the manual when trying to set up basic options like the garage door opener, interior lighting options, CarPlay, etc. So, some of my observations on this aren't entirely valid for all. For me, however, the system isn't that intuitive. With the physical scroll wheel in our '19 RS5, I've been able to find and set most options with little to no difficulty thanks to the "standard" way in which the menus are laid out. There was consistency from prior models, making it easier to learn new cars. The touch system does have hints of the old organization, though its a bigger leap here. It took me awhile to find the vehicle settings menus needed to set central locking, interior/exterior lighting, etc. I figured it out though. I'm sure it'll get easier the more I use the car.
• I put the Plush Paws Products Quilted Velvet Waterproof Center Console Access Hammock Car Seat Cover in the back seat. Fit is fair, I'd prefer a "tighter" fit. It certainly is soft. The seat bottom doesn't quite attach snugly enough so I'm thinking it might dislodge and expose the seat. I didn't install the hammock portion though, so maybe that would help. I also bought the door cover add ons, though haven't installed them yet.
• Wondering about hardwiring a radar detector. I hardwired our RS5 into the overhead panel and would like to do the same here. The RS5 hardwire was a PITA though. Getting the overhead covers off was not easy. I like to do all this myself, but maybe its time to let someone else do it for me. I always manage to break a tab or two...
• The car came with the Audi crossbars...I'm not crazy about the aesthetics of them. they sit up kind of high and the bars don't extend past the towers. This is a personal preference, of course. I expected this, so I'd hoped to reuse the Thule crossbars I'd had on the B8.5 allroad. The rear crossbars went on fine. However, they fronts were too short by ~2 inches. I ordered 50" bars as Thule recommends for the A6 Allroad. Anyone interest in a pair of 47" WingBar Aero crossbars?

That's all the initial observations so far. I'll add more as time goes along. I love the car overall and can't wait to get going on personalizing the car. I'll start a new thread for that...

Here's the car at delivery:

larryV

beauty. congrats! did the audi crossbars come as a port-added option on that build? if so, what price is it listed as on the monroney sticker?

no crossbars came with mine… undecided if I should get thule or the oem ones. If anything I think I’d rather get thule since they can be had in all black which would suit black optics well.