GIAudi

Hello all,

New to the A8 and have some questions regarding the care and upkeep of this car.

1. The car has 88k on the odometer. Should I change all the drivetrain fluids? Trans, diffs, etc.

2. Thoughts on a K&N air filter?

3. Any stuff that you all see/know cause issues on the car?

I am moving over from a 14 year old A6 2.7MT that has 250K on the clock and am a little unfamiliar with this series of car. I have done all my own work on the other car and am comfortable performing the work for the most part. On the A6 automatics I was told that if you didn't change the trans fluid by a certain mileage that you were better leaving it alone.

I bought this car from an Audi dealer, and there has been a lot of work done already, plus they gave me a one year factory warranty.

Thanks to all for any help!

mishar

Congratulations and welcome to the A8/S8 D3 board.

1. Yes, it is good to change ATF, differential oil, power steering fluid and brake fluid.

2. No, it is not adequate protection and there is always risk of oil to the MAF. On top of that instead of cold air it aspirates hot air from the engine bay loosing some power.

3. Air suspension is nice but not indestructible. Be nice to it over speed bumps. If you don't already have buy Ross-Tech VCDS . It is only DIY way to find out what's wrong in most of cases.

MP4.2+6.0

+1

GIAudi

Excellent, thanks for the help. I will be starting a detailed maintenance program shortly.

I have to pick up the vcds, I just need a computer that will run it. I have just the simple scanner now.

Thanks!

MP4.2+6.0

from family, friends, work, school, what ever. I use a 10+ year very small Sony laptop w/ XP that was abandoned as a general machine by a kid 6 or 8 years ago. Doesn't hold a charge past a day, but good enough. They are a dime a dozen in people's drawers, closets, shelves and on ebay.

W/ basic wireless you can get to a web mail account to move scan results files to what ever is your normal unit, like for me a Mac. Plus if you get an obsolete XP one, you can also directly load and run Bentley for the D3 shop manual, which they never really migrated to more modern platforms. Bentley, VCDS and Explorer are basically my only applications on my old XP throwaway now, plus Notepad to copy out the scans I want to save on its (40G) drive. I wiped the drive and reloaded the original OS disks when I recommissioned it, so it performs fine for the limited functions. Half the time now I don't even save a scan for something that comes up; I just snap a literal screen shot picture with my phone and look at it later to recheck an old code or some such.

GIAudi

I will find one, worst case I'll ebay one or something. I have a lot of little issues with the car, not that most would notice and nothing that is a danger, mostly cosmetic and a couple mechanical.

Mishar, do the drop in K&N units suffer from the hot air issues? I have used them on other vehicles with no ill effect.

Thanks again!

MP4.2+6.0

BTDT. Eventually the oil is likely to get on your MAF. And the insidious thing is you won't even know it. Rule of thumb is it should read flow at peak at about 80% of rated HP, measured in grams/sec. On my 300HP 2000 A6 4.2 with one so equipped, over time and a variety of weird tranny shifting issues (in part connected to the MAF), I found it reading at less than 220 g/s IIRC. At 300HP, should read at least .8x300=240. Put a new one in and it immediately went to 255 g/s. To be clear, this was same filter vs. same filter by then, since I pulled K&N out having found some fine red oil in the intake tract all the way up to the throttle area--on a filter either factory oiled or where I know what I'm doing. It injects fuel presumably based on how much air it sees going past the sensor. Do the math. Even if O2 closed loop system can overcome a bunch of it if the O2 sensor sees it as leaned out, it can't do so open loop (start up), and probably doesn't work optimally on acceleration.

Net to me K&N is an old 70's relic that goes with carbs and loping cams and such. Worked fine on my 1973 100LS with the Weber 32/36 I put on it, or the pre MAF C3. After that, nope. Similar finds by the way with oil way up the intake on factory oiled (only) on another vehicle too. Thus, performance subtract now, backed up by first person observed data.

Panelhead

I have used them on American truck based vehicles with good success. On anAudi the MAF may be too close to the filter element.
The hot air issues are more of a problem with K&N "high performance" air intakes with a filter shaped like the Audi filter and the intake inserted in the bottom. Those are supposed to get another 12 - 20 hp in a pickup or SUV.
Like Mishar mentioned, they are not in a ducted air box. In South Texas, or DFW the under hood air can easily be 100 degrees higher than ambient.

TSHong

I've run K&N filter on my 1999 D2 for ten years with no issues. I have two in my W12 now with two years on the clock with no issues. I don't feel any power deference but I use them for fuel economy. With my D2 I got about 15 more miles on a tank of gas. Not a big deal. I got about 20 miles on my 1994 Q45 back in the day. I don't know about the W12 mileage improvement if any since I put them in since I've owned the car.

Brozee

I ran a K&N on my 2005 A8 for the past few years. Until my last oil change. This oil change I did myself and I know that I never over oil the filter, and generally let it dry several hours if not overnight. The air hose that you disconnect underneath the filter housing had oil residue inside of it. So that was the last time I used the K&N filter. I didn't want to ever use it on the W12; given how expensive the MAF sensors are are the quality of the standard OEM filters outweighed the almost 0 performance gain and slight financial savings that the K&N offered.