Bwyatt079

I am a former vw certified vw/audi tech with lots of experience and ability to handle most repairs myself. However, I dont have much money to afford any big surprises and dont have a ton of spare time. The car will be expected to be a daily driver for me to get to work and take my son to daycare every day. 30 miles each way mixed highway and city.

The car is a highly optioned silver 85k miles 97 A8 4.2 quattro with a rebuilt transmission installed recently. No timing belt done yet. The seller claims there are no problems at all with the car and he drives it regularly. I haven't driven it yet as it would be a bit of a trip to get to it but its kind of hard to believe the car is in completely perfect shape.

I currently drive (and would have to get rid of) a 98 A4 1.8t quattro that gets me where i need to go just fine but is a little small and uncomfortable for the whole family. It has 170k miles and has been requiring a lot of attention lately. I don't quite feel ok driving it on any trips which is annoying.

I have done the research on these cars and learned about their common failure points and i don't see anything that i couldn't handle. Im looking to hear from people with enough experience to tell me if it sounds like i am making a good decision or not. I have a tendency to buy cars that i want based off the fun and appearance factor without thinking of the bigger picture. I understand that it is a used car and can act up at any time, but in general, do you think that this car would fit into my expectations.

icrashcars

it will definitely need maintenance.
the most common items that fail on these cars around/ above 100K are:
Trans (youre good)
Check timing belt
Oil Cooler pipe (cheap part, but major pain to replace)
fuel pump
Control arms (pricey)
check for oil leaks. there are a few seals that go bad (rear cam seals, oil pump seal)

Others may chime in.

I have had a 99 for 3 years and have put 40k miles on it. I love the car, but it does require attention.

omarcarbomb

I would buy one for low enough amount of money that when it died on side of road you could leave it there.

BrianC72gt

I might also look at a well-cared-for Facelift model 2000-2003. 5 valve heads, less weepy, HID lowbeams, double din radio slot (if that matters), slightly updated cluster & center stack. Coil packs eventually fail.

The achilles heel of the D2 is the transmission. Not sure if later D2 transmissions are any better than early ones. I've got 170k on my original tranny with a couple of fluid and filter changes. Others have had failures at half that mileage. Bit of a crap shoot.

A good service history on the big bits would be my primary concern.

Road King

In short, I'd say no, a '97 A8 is going to have problems, as all decade+ Audis do...and then some.

If you need a reliable daily driver, this is the wrong car for you. My daily driver is a '97 Lexus LS400, and while near bulletproof, it needed a fuel pump at 159K miles. Other than that, it's fluids and brakes...

my $0.02.

Bwyatt079

thank you for all of your time and advice. the seller ended up not wanting to answer my questions about his transmission replacement so i figured that was a sign. i ended up with a 92 audi 100 s. super clean, low mileage, well cared for, manual trans, deal impossible to pass up.