Rear Suspension Shock Absorber Problems of Audi RS6

2003 Audi Rs6. I purchased this car new and over the last 3 years have had shock absorber failures on 3 of the 4 corners. Left front and left rear shock have each failed once and the right rear shock has failed 4 times. This vehicle has accumulated less than 16,500 miles as of 6/12/2008. The most recent incident of shock absorber failure occurred in Mar 2008 with a right rear shock. The shock and associated central control valve was replaced at an authorized Audi dealer. Two months later the same shock was found to be leaking hydraulic fluid and had to be replaced with it's associated central control valve. This was after only 600 miles of driving. When the shocks depressurize the cars handling is compromised and results in unpredictable handling characteristics that could result in an accident. Although in my case an accident has not occurred at this point, it certainly could some time in the future as the system is unreliable. The only thing predictable about this "drc" dynamic ride control system is that it's only a matter of a short period of time before the shocks fail again. A single shock failure costs between $1,200 and $1,700 to repair due to the complexity of the system and the associated parts that also must be replaced. Total costs of repairs to the drc system on my vehicle to date is over $8,000. Keep in mind that this car has less than 16,500 miles on the clock as of June 2008. The manufacturer's warranty covered the costs of these repairs for the first 4 years and now the extended warranty is covering the cost since the original warranty has expired less a deductible. In my opinion the "drc" system on this vehicle was either under engineered or the factory has a vendor problem with defective parts. In any case this is unacceptable for any car and especially for a car that had a sticker price of $88,000 in 2003.

See all problems of the 2003 Audi RS6 🔎.

My 2003 Audi Rs6 has suffered its 5th drc failure in 4 years as front shock absorbers once again leaked fluid out resulting in dangerously improper handling. If I hadn't known what was happening it could cause one to think that the race tuned suspension was working and that aggressive driving in this 450 horsepower car could have resulted in a fatal accident. Audi continues to charge its customers thousands of dollars to replace this faulty system with more faulty parts as they refuse to redesign the system and opt for instead putting more faulty parts on the car which they full well know will fail again. Please help us force Audi to make this right before someone loses their life as a result. It may have already happened but nobody has connected it yet. There is a website for Rs6 owners that has taken a poll, and over 75% of the 1200 cars sent to the USA have suffered at least one failure, some after only a few thousand miles. This is criminally negligent behavior and we owners are appealing to you to step in and start an investigation. Remember, this is the same company that suffered the 'unintended acceleration" fisaco in the late 80's, and it wasn't until 60 minutes did a story on it that something was done. We need this kind of intervention to force them to fix this dangerous fault. How many have to complain until you do something about this?.

Failure of the suspension system, yielding erratic behavior of the vehicle over bumps and depressions. The vehicle is equipped with a system called "dynamic ride control" (aka drc) which is a fluid-filled system to control shock absorber movements, but the shocks leak the fluid resulting in failure of the suspension system as designed to perform.

Failure of the suspension system of the 2003 Audi Rs6, February 2006, the repair took 3 monthsed and the car was still not back to normal. Audi claims this problem with leakage from the drc system was rare, but in factwas becoming quite common.