[s-cars] Hans & Franz ride again?

[Lee Levitt]

John writes:
> 
> I'm buying an '02 S6 Avant this week, deal is 99% done, as a 
> replacement for my beloved (and soon to be semi-retired) '93 
> S4. I have major concerns about the transmission, but I 
> figure I'll try the GIAC tip chip and see if it behaves 
> better. I drove an Allroad thinking I would get a six speed 
> and chip it and fix the suspension. It did a very bad thing 
> in a hard corner, completely sideways to a dead stop and 
> almost into a concrete wall. I haven't been that out of shape 
> on a dry road since I was a teenager. I don't think the 
> suspension is fixable.
> My question to all you Audimiesters out there is this: The 
> one I drove today had the three spoke sport wheel. The one 
> I'm buying has a four spoke wheel with more buttons. Once I 
> saw this, I looked at the pictures of every S6 for sale on 
> autotrader.com and cars.com. About 80% had the sport wheel, 
> 20% had the four spoke. This was independent of year ('03 or 
> '02) or if it had the comfort or sport seats. There were some 
> of each with each wheel. Audi's list of available equipment 
> and options shows the three spoke only. Local service manager 
> didn't know what I was talking about.
> I know back in the '90s, Hans and Franz grabbed whatever 
> parts were handy from the bin on the day they were building 
> the car, but does this still happen?


I actually think that there was some rhyme to the reason on the wheel
choices. Your 4 spoke wheel *may* have radio controls in addition to the tip
controls. I don't know of any A6 3 spoke wheels that had both.

Here's the good news...you probably can swap out your wheel for a 3 spoker.
You'll probably lose the radio controls on the wheel, but so what?

My 2002 A6 3.0 came with the boring 4 spoke wheel. I swapped it out for a 3
spoke TT wheel. Plug and play. You just have to make sure that the
connectors match. Your wheel may also be heated, which is not good. They
fail after a while, sometimes spectacularly.

I also chose *not* to go with a wheel with tip buttons...I tried that
briefly and found that I kept honking them instead of the horn.

Of course, once you've done that you have to upgrade the Bose system to a
Nav Plus. A *very* nice system.

Lee