Nice tip. These ones however had started to leak at the joints. Which can be resolved but as they were about 20 years or so old and the run wasn't particulalry good in places I thought I would take advantage of the scaffolding. The rones at the back are actually a bit older but get less sun, don't leak and are just fine so all they'll get is a bit of a clean.

I have a friend who is presently working in Abuja. It has it's 'challenges'. Previously it was Central African Republic. Which in local terms at least was significantly safer. Angola too. It was apparently absolutely beautiful with 99.9% of the people great.

Strangely enough I've been to most of the countries that's going to sail past, enen lived in one of them. 

If you leave the plastic ones weather in, then original hamerite keys to it and makes it look original 😉

Roof fully stripped of the old slates. And six pallets of new slates (for the approx. 170 m2 of roof) arrived this morning, in the tipping rain. Fortunately the roof now has a full breather membrane over the wood sarking that it never had previously. I have been taking advantage of the scaffolding to do a bit of maintenance. The plastic rones (rain gutter) at the front were getting a bit past it so I replaced them and I am about half way round painting under the eaves.

Getting closer

Yes. And that’s probably better than the “long life” (that’s the oil not the engine!) system where the car decides based on usage which might be 50% more than that.  Our TT was on that regime for its first 48k and had two oil changes according to the records. The first wasn’t all that long either (relatively). Engine is rather more filthy inside at 115k than the A6 at 368k. And people wonder why the oil strainers block up!

Incredibly, the first service interval for the 2016 A6 was 24 months/20,000km.

It’s a bit new for me.  With most modern diesels it seems that usage profile and service regime have a big effect. Higher mileage (not starship at that age!) motorway cruiser likely to be better (lower hours too) than something that’s be pottered about. I would tend to avoid anything that’s had extended service (car decides!) intervals, but not sure avoidance is even possible at that age. They are very complex engines and there are quite a few variations of them, some with more issues than others. Worth finding out the engine codes (three letters generally) of prospective buys and googling! Bearing in mind that googling tends to bias to the negative!

Hamish Assuming you have the 3.0tdi in mind, I'm sure others will offer you vastly more competent feedback than mine, but from a user perspective (A5 3.0tdi single turbo followed by an A6 3.0tdi bi-turbo), it seems the older the better. Admittedly, I wasn't particularly gentle with either car, but the A6's power (330bhp) translated into dire consumption - I rarely got more than 30mpg on longer trips, and around town it would average below 20mpg. A chum with an RS6 gor better figures... Apparently, the latest version has a rep for chewing its camshaft gear, comprising far more plastic, and leaking more frequently from more locations. Also, whilst appreciating that you have towing in mind, you may be disappointed swapping from the A5 to an A6, which is a far more anodine experience (and very scary at the upper limits, if you ever have the opportunity to explore them). Paul