samsmart18

I thought id share my A8 story so far. For anyone to compare similar problems they have or had and for people looking to buying one! As ive had some good help from reading this forum id thought id share what ive experienced to hopefully help another!

This is a 2.8 UK model. I know these aren't available in the US (i believe) but could be a good reference for someone.

So i bought my A8 in november last year. I knew what i was looking for in a car but somehow got over thrown by the excitement of having one.

So when viewing it was in brilliant condition. Body work excellent, Interior excellent, wheels excellent and some good tyres. 100,000 miles seemed pretty decent for the age of the car. LOADS of receipts including recent new suspension costing £1000's and everything electronic working and no lights on the dash. So i took it for £1000. I thought i had a good deal. Drove it home and noticed there was no heat coming through blowing cold. I thought ok, my last car had this problem and wasnt to much of an issue to fix. That was day one of owning the car. After driving home 120 miles all seemed alright.

Day 2 i thought id take it out for a spin and got stuck in traffic. It over heated. Stopped immediately and let it call down. The fan wasnt working when the car was standing still. turned out to be a faulty radiator switch. I also found out all the coolant has disappeared. Excellent. Topped this back up and it went again

Day 3 i took it to my friends garage and found it needs 2 new head gaskets, new radiator. OK i thought. I bought it now. Im gonna do it im in love with the car its amazing to drive and ive driven brand new cars that don't drive as nicely as this. The cause of the heads going is still unknown to this day.

After the new heads and rad was fitted the heating issue was not fixed. We got this down to a water pump that is just for the heating. It had been disconnected connected back up and the noise was horrendous. The previous owner must of known about this one. I was feeling more ripped off as the time went on haha. Replaced this with a used one. Worked nicely but was very noisy at first but soon settled in.

We then worked out where the coolant was going before. It was being mixed in the rad and pushed into the gearbox.. This was a bit of slap head hard moment. I was thinking gearbox rebuild/replace. As it kept going into limp mode. Flushed the gear box through multiple times and new filter. Now the gearbox oil is all red and nice again. Had the codes cleared and now working smoothly.

After getting it back the coolant vanished again a week later. Got this down the Coolant temp switch. Replaced it. New one faulty. Great but at least nothing is leaking. Now waiting on a replacement.

Oh during all this the ABS light came on occasionally. Front right wheel sensor. Closer inspection found i have a torn CV boot. Im assuming this maybe flicking oil around the sensor causing it to malfunction so this is my next job! Im going to replace the CV boot and replace the sensor.

So this my A8 story so far. I love the car to bits. They are brilliant. Everyone i know thinks it is a lovely car. Im 21 so this a big car for someone my age and is Far more advanced than some of my friends who have bought brand new cars like VW golfs and Vauxhall Astras. The A8 has more luxuries than a brand new £14,000 golf and looks a million times better. In total now im looking at around £2200 in total for the car and work.

The moral of the story is. If you are looking at buying an Audi A8. go in there with more money spare after you bought it than you paid for the car haha. Dont expect to buy one that is not going to need some serious money spent on it in your time of ownership. These are great cars and id much rather spend £2000 on something like this than £10,000 for a used 1.0 litre Vauxhall Corsa style car like most people my age seem to own. Insurance is good. Economy not so. at petrol at £1.30 a litre at the moment it cost me £90 to fill up for about 400 miles. Don't expect anything special from the MPG! (I already knew this when buying it, just pre warning anyone looking into one)

So thats my story. If you'd like me to try to go into any more detail about any of the problems I've had just ask and ill tell you as much as i possibly can.

AudiPasha

Welcome!

I just bought one for about $6000 in October last year and the transmission blew on me just about 2 weeks ago! So I didn't want a car that I had to put in another $3000 into for a new tranny and that needed more work to be done to it! So i took it off my hands and sold it for about $3500.00... The next day I found an A8 locally and the guy gave it to me for free! It had a misfire the tranny was in limp mode.... So I already put about $2.5k into maintenance and mods, and tomorrow will be a week since I have owned the car!!! But I am very excited! The tranny is no longer in limp mode and the car seems to run like it's new! By the way she only has 80k miles on her!

samsmart18

FREE!! cannot go wrong for that and with only 80,000! that is an amazing find. They are gorgeous cars, Brilliant road presence (in the UK anyway, i know what you Americans are like with you big big machines over the pond! :P) And just so pleasant to drive. They dont feel as big as they are until you get in to a car park. My only wish would be having the 4.2 but the way our economy is not much hope of that happening at the moment as already 80% of the pump price is TAX!! Whaaat!

AudiPasha

Dont mean to sound dumb or anything but does anyone know if there are any effective tran/engine tunes for our A8?