I've owned my A6 for about ten years now, and it's leaked oil the entire time. Two different shops tried to fix the leaks and failed when I bought it, and I've changed the valve cover gaskets, cam chain adjuster gaskets, and cam seals a couple times since then, but it never stopped leaking on the exhaust manifolds. There's just nothing that says German quality quite like smelling burning oil every time you stop the car.

But in a few weeks, my daughter is taking the car to college eight hours north of here, so I thought I would give it one more try. A friend of mine who used to be a motorcycle mechanic told me that Yamabond 4 would seal up anything, so I should give that a try. This past weekend, I replaced the timing belt and water pump with ECS Tuning's Ultimate Plus kit, and while I was in there, I replaced all six of the cam seals, the crank seal, the cam chain tensioner gaskets, and the valve cover gaskets, again.

This time, however, I used the Yamabond 4 instead of the RTV I had used in the past, and unbelievably, the oil now seems to be staying inside the engine. I also replaced all of the front control arms with a Vaico set, which may not be as good as the febi/Bilstein set I put on it before, but at 305K miles, they may still outlast the rest of the car. I also ordered a set of KYB front struts because the ones that are on the car are still the ones that came with it from the factory and they're getting a little tired. Beyond that, I'm going to get her an Optima battery to deal with the nine months of winter up in the UP, and then it should be ready to go.

I had to fix the typical rust on the passenger door earlier this summer, but with that done, the car still looks remarkably good for its age and mileage, and it still runs and drives great. I actually bought another 2.8 engine and transmission this summer thinking that I would swap them in before she left, but the original ones are still working fine, so now I have spares.

The car is now down to two issues. The tiptronic shifting doesn't work, which doesn't really bother me, because it was still a poor replacement for a real manual transmission, and the brakes are a little weak. I had a local import shop pressure bleed the whole system after I replaced the master cylinder, but that didn't help. I just ordered a new power brake booster, but then I read that there have been problems in the past with the vacuum line that feeds the booster, so I have to take a look at that.

Overall, I've been quite happy with the car, even though it's certainly given me a lot of excuses to buy tools. The Quattro AWD and the set of Blizzaks I just bought should keep my daughter out of the ditches this winter, and with any luck, maybe even allow her to come home for Thanksgiving.