The Audi A6 C7, from what I know, came with two 2.0 TDI engines (besides the low power ones)

- Pre-facelift 177HP version, code CGLC, EGR & DPF, no AdBlue with 6spd manual or Multitronic (CVT)
- Facelift 190HP Ultra version, code CNHA, EGR, DPF and AdBlue with 6spd manual or S-Tronic (7spd auto)

I'd like to have a little comparison between the engines, either from people working in the field or people who have owned any of these engines, mainly on the topic of reliability but also on the feel of the car as a whole.

From what I read online, the 190hp version, while being a bit quicker, feels a bit more refined and the S-Tronic gets rid of the awkwardness of the CVT. On the other side, the 177hp version seems to be more reliable? Especially from the lack of AdBlue and being an older model, pre-dieselgate.

I understand the 2.0 is quite weak for such a big and heavy car, but my only alternative is settling with an A4 2.0TDI which is really quite smaller than what I'd like. 3.0TDI means a more than 10x tax and insurance increase where I live.

I'd love to hear your thoughts

Having owned a 177bhp with the multitronic and fairly recently aquiring a 190 ultra facelift with the s tronic I’ve noticed a few differences

I owned the 177bhp a6 for 18 months and drove 30k+ miles in it and other than standard service items like brakes and tyres, I had no real issues with the car. The engine had plenty of power and although it wasn’t breaking any speed records and the gearbox took a while to decide it wanted to move but once it started to go, there was more than enough power and didn’t feel underpowered whatsoever. 

The ultra on the other hand, I’ve owned it for a month and had no end of issues so far, although I’m not suggesting all these are having issues. Since I bought it, it’s had dpf issues and went back to dealership for 2 weeks to get that sorted. As well as that, Ive had a few knocks from suspension and driveshaft started clicking. That being said, now that tue dpf system has been repaired, the engine runs and feels amazing. The gearbox 95% of the time works brilliantly. The other 5% the gearbox get confused when downshifting and a bit juddery when shifting from 2nd to 1st and accelerating it sometimes doesn’t knock what gear to select when starting from standstill. Now I wouldn’t discount this as a result of these. The car drives amazingly and over the past 2 weeks, the 1500 miles I’ve completed in it, have been flawless engine and gearbox wise. 
 

now referring to the engines being quite weak, I wouldn’t say they are underpowered. Of course there not breaking any speed records but plenty of power to do anything you wanted to. 

Tom - ref. the DPF issues you had - glad they were fixed. 

 

The problems I seem to see a lot in fo4ums for the 190 ultra and DPF and EGR.  Was there anything else you looked out for when buying your 190?  Auto gearbox service records?

Please could  you let us know what the dealership had to do to fix it, and is it a problem that will ( eventually ) just come back again - or are there was to reduce the risk / avoid DPF problems?  many thanks

I've read through all of this forum and the 190 seems to have more problems (maybe more of them?) than the 177.

My wife has a 2012 SE 177, with 146,000 miles and it's had one egr cooler, that's all. 

I regularly check the dpf with carly.

Phil - is there a particular model of Carly you've bought - anyone else have recommendations on a fault code reader - that is at the cheaper end(!say around the £100 mark?   but that can be useful to monitor dpf, get live readings / instigate a regen?  Anyone used a Launch CR123x - seems to get good reviews on amazon?  thanks.

I've got 'all brands', yearly subscription. 

Worth It's weight in gold. Even if used a few times a year.

Carly (previously Bmwhat) had lots of issues over the years, but now with the latest gen 3 universal adapter, it's great.

Thanks for the Carly info.🙂 just ordered one as there was a black friday deal, delivered pretty quickly, arrived in about 2 days.

Sweet. Let me know how you get on. The "live data" has soooo many to chose from. I selected, coolant temp, exhaust temp( 3 of them)

Exhaust back pressure and soot level (critical to monitor, as these will tell you roughly when regen will occur).

I always try to make sure the regen has completed, even if it means taking her car out once she got home from work.

Named brand fuel (doesn't have to be premium),Hydra's DPB-100 and STP dpf regenerator also get used in hers, and my laguna(and previous to that, my BMW. 

Just got rid of the 2005 318d M Sport with 243,000 miles on original dpf. I did have it cleaned professionally, but turns out the injectors were just getting leaky, making the dpf fill up too fast.

Phil - thanks for tips:

See the STP you mentioned is a 'regenerator'  is that stronger than the general additives that 'helps' the car to maintain the DPF?  Did you use them pretty often - I'm trying to go into the C7 dpf world with my eyes as open as they can be! 🤔

So my shopping list for 'DPF life' is:

OBD reader for soot etc. levels; branded fuel;  DPF fuel additive;  shorter oil change intervals, trying to avoid granny-ing the car around town in slow / low revs, short journeys;  and making sure to do a high revs for at least 1/2 hr  ( 2500 - 3000 revs?? ) weekly.

DPF:

I'm a bit concerned about the DPF - as the car did 2 long A roads on saturday ( 1/2 hr each way, over 2500mm revs ) & then 2 x motorway journeys on the sunday ( 1hr each way, 70mph over 3k revs ) then did 2 short town drive of 6 miles on the monday - and went into regen.  I'd thought the motorway drives would have given it a good clean?  Is this a bad sign?

MyCarly:

Reassuring to hear your experience of Carly seems so good.  Just found a youtube with pretty surprising feedback on the Carly sales policies - e.g. the split second you buy it, their procedure means you are instantly cancelling your option to any refund ( for the reader or the subscription ) - even if unused and within 14 days! )).  Then also looked on Trustpilot  - to find countless issues with their returns / customer service / auto renewals......😦

10 minutes ago, Bobbins said:

Phil - thanks for tips:

See the STP you mentioned is a 'regenerator'  is that stronger than the general additives that 'helps' the car to maintain the DPF?  Did you use them pretty often - I'm trying to go into the C7 dpf world with my eyes as open as they can be! 🤔

So my shopping list for 'DPF life' is:

OBD reader for soot etc. levels; branded fuel;  DPF fuel additive;  shorter oil change intervals, trying to avoid granny-ing the car around town in slow / low revs, short journeys;  and making sure to do a high revs for at least 1/2 hr  ( 2500 - 3000 revs?? ) weekly.

DPF:

I'm a bit concerned about the DPF - as the car did 2 long A roads on saturday ( 1/2 hr each way, over 2500mm revs ) & then 2 x motorway journeys on the sunday ( 1hr each way, 70mph over 3k revs ) then did 2 short town drive of 6 miles on the monday - and went into regen.  I'd thought the motorway drives would have given it a good clean?  Is this a bad sign?

MyCarly:

Reassuring to hear your experience of Carly seems so good.  Just found a youtube with pretty surprising feedback on the Carly sales policies - e.g. the split second you buy it, their procedure means you are instantly cancelling your option to any refund ( for the reader or the subscription ) - even if unused and within 14 days! )).  Then also looked on Trustpilot  - to find countless issues with their returns / customer service / auto renewals......😦

Hi buy Carly at your own peril, can't understand why people buy it as its a generic software used by all the cheaper scan tool companies and poached from the OBDEleven brigade whom I was a firm fan of until they started issuing updates that wipe out existing functions on my Pro subscription, we also have the tokens scenario where is all they are interested in is selling them to perform one click apps which most of the time dont work but they still take the tokens, even started taking tokens for SRI, I finally bit the bullet and bought the update version of VCDS yes it seems expensive but when you use it its like night and day, example SRI reset one button and ten seconds it does both the service and inspection reset, the car will only regenerate when the sensors tell it to so no amount of motorway driving will promote any major passive regeneration due to the design of the exhaust, I have finally settled on Dipetane as my additive of choice as it contains nothing but hydrocarbon which causes the soot particles to be smaller therefore they burn off more quickly, the car wont be regenerating as often during winter as the ambient air temperature being cooler means the EGR is open less frequently.

Steve.

Steve - thanks very much again!

Hopefully not sadly - but I'm stuck with Carly! ( bought it before I'd spotted the scam about being impossible to return )

Will take a look at VCDS.

thanks😎

The STP lowers the combustion temperature of the soot. I've heard good things about Dipetane, but never used it long term.

The DPB-100 is cetane booster and has several other benefits.

They both go in every tank.

@Stevy, you nearly sold me on OBDEleven, till i kept reading. I never thought about the ambient temp vs regens,

I've heard the same about the returns thing recently,but having mine for over ten years it's not something I need to deal with. I can't understand why so many people want to return it. Yeah, with the gen 1 and 2 adapter, it was 'pull your !Removed! hair out time' due to !Removed! connections. 

But the gen 3 is flawless.

I also have genuine VCDS from Gendan, but Carly is so much easier for diagnostics and live data.

It'll only regen when the pressure goes up, or possibly when it's covered a certain amount of miles or even when the soot loading gets to a certain level. Her soot level gets to between 15 and 25 grams.

Now you've got carly, you can monitor it regularly to watch the soot level and differential pressure rise over time. 

I'd definitely recommend fully synthetic oil (well known brand) and Bosch, Mann, or some other top quality filter, same goes for fuel air and pollen filter.