Ok, this is a brief story of how things have been developing in my A6 for the last couple of months.

Ive had my car for about a year, it has barely 100k miles on it, and its in very good conditions(apparently).

The first issue i had was that the car, after a good while of driving, if i idled for to long, the temperature would start to climb, this only with the AC on, i really never tried to see how hight it would get, the most ive let it get was at about 3/4 high, which i think was pretty high, due to the fact that while driving on open road, it never got above mid point. My first guess was the Sensor that makes the fans turn on, or maybe the fan clutch are busted or maybe getting there. After a while ive hit cold weather so the symptoms started to dissapear, so i stopped paying attention.

Now that its getting a little bit warmer, for the last month i started noticing antifreeze consumption, its really not that much, i would fill it up at the "max" indicator, and maybe after a month it would get a little bit below the "min" indicator. Also, ive been noticing that after i drive for a bit, the car smells of antifreeze, ive tried to find a leak, but the only thing ive found is marks of dried coolant in the front part of the engine, like at the bottom where the pullies are, the other day while doing the oil change i noticed these marks, so im assuming it might be the watter pump.

Let me know what you guys think, ive come to the conclusion to just change the water pump, thermostat and while at it, change the Timing Belt, just to keep it safe.

 

Probably water pump related. If your car has 100K miles, then it has been due for a new timing belt anyways.

 

yeah, i checked the timing belt and it looks like it was replaced recently, i think the owners before me did all that stuff to it. Still im planning on taking the entire front end off, maybe after further assessment ill decide what parts to replace.

Also, one thing i forgot to mention, is that the Cap for the coolant reservoir was busted, the things on the inside basically broke to pieces, im thinking that also can affect a bit.

 

Broken cap will create coolant lose, but it won't create coolant residue at the front of the engine. You really can't tell whether the timing belt is new or not by looking at it from the top side, under the cover.