a7mado

Hi!

I am new to this forum. I hope all you are doing well, and happy holidays!.

I am currently looking at an '09 Audi S8, its black and is practically brand new with 25k miles on it. The car has been well cared for by the owner, its a one owner car. I had the car scanned last night for any errors via the VCDS and it was showing no error codes. He had the car up for sale for a while, bumped the price down about 3 times and is now willing to part with it for basically the same price as Audi S8's with 3 times the miles.

My question is that what is the reliability like on these cars? Especially one with such low miles, would I have peace of mind for the next 25k miles? I currently own an '06 Audi A8L 3.2L FWD and its a lemon of epic proportions, bought the car a couple of years back with around 50k miles and have not had a peaceful journey that I can recall without it making some weird random noise or warning light popping-up that would scare the bejesus out of me, to the point where I have a reliability phobia and no longer wish to buy old European luxo barges anymore and am currently looking to swap with a series 200 Land Cruiser ('08-'12).

However, the S8 in question sort of rekindled my love affair with D3's all over again, D3's C6's and B7's/B8's are the best looking cars Audi made, the only thing that is making me want to make the purchase is the low low miles that car has and the amount of care the previous owner has given to the car, the rear seats have never been used. That, and the fact that it's fully loaded, with ceramics, B&O stereo, it's basically had the entire options list thrown at it.

I don't have deep pockets, lol, nor do I have the time to tinker with these exotics as I work as a project manager and anyone here that works under this title knows that we have no fixed job timings. What do you guys think? Should I stay away from it? Or should I go ahead and make the purchase? I will only be using it as a weekend car and will use the Land Cruiser as the daily. Again, I have a genuine reliability phobia, lol.

Cheers!

P.S.- The owner also has a TGSasaki exhaust, brand new in box but never got around to having the exhaust system fitted as the car was under warranty when he purchased the exhaust and didn't want to risk voiding the warranty or something. He claims that he purchased the exhaust system for $10k and is willing to sell it to me for $3.5k, is it a worth while upgrade? Does it effect the car's reliability in anyway? As I live in Kuwait and we have dusty 115'F summers and cold humid 40'F winters. Mind you, the exhaust system does sound really sweet, almost Gallardo like.

a7mado

This is the car in question.

Hannibalacp82

I love my 08 that I bought this summer with 60k kilometers on it. If the scan is good the known trouble spots are the control arm bushings and the air struts. Read the stickies and save about 2k for repairs if you are handy or 5k if you want to take it to the dealer.

Remember when "balling on a budget" you may have purchased the car for the price of a Honda Accord but the car can have 100k car problems.

In for pics!

a7mado

That's what I fear, I mean a car with this low miles shouldn't necessarily have issues but then again it is 6 years old. Does it have torque issues? Because it is after all the same motor as the one in the Gallardo.

a7mado

On a completely different note, has anyone tried to do anything crazy with the V10's? Like get more power out of them, or maybe perhaps swap the stock turbo's with the ones from the C6 RS6?.

MP4.2+6.0

If you owned a 2006, you know the traditional D3 week spots--front control arms, air ride by somewhere around 100K miles, trunk motor, etc. A strong car, and you do have better odds with end of run (2009 was it for S8s) and low miles. But it is a complex vehicle and it is an Audi in the end, so don't expect Land Cruiser reputational reliability.

You say you are in Kuwait. Off and on we seem to have a few posters form there or surrounding locales. My sense from afar is repair expertise is hit and miss and parts really expensive. Watch for those.

A nuance on scans BTW (if not for this, for future scans) is always read the readiness codes in the ECU module. If the readiness codes read "not ready" and no light is on, it's a dead give away someone cleared the codes just before you. They reset to "ready"--or the check engine light turns on--within a couple of driving cycles max. Probably has happened before, though presumably more with used car lot sleaze than private party sales.

Hannibalacp82

Age has nothing to do with the control arm bushings or air strut issues. When your number comes due is when the problem arises. If you are fearful of putting away 2-5k for repairs then this isn't the car for you. My analogy rings all to true...just because the car is now the price of a Honda accord doesn't mean it is going to run like one.

However there is a wealth of knowledge here on what can go wrong, what to do to prevent it from going wrong and how to fix it once it does go wrong.

As for the torque issues I am not aware of any problems. It is the same block from the Gallardo but it was bored out from 5.0 to 5.2 and the HP was dropped a bit and it was given a more even torque curve.

It is NOT the 5.2 from the LP560.

Hannibalacp82

Stock turbos? You know the V10 in the S8 is NA and not FI? The rs6 was putting down like 600+ HP...the s8 is "only" 450 HP.

MP4.2+6.0

Not really. If you want more power, get any D4 4.0T--A8 or S8--as a way more cost effective solution w/ chipping. Hard to pump up any already highly tuned normally aspirated motor meaningfully. And put the RS6 turbos in there in Kuwait? Huge tuning difficulty aside when you get into ECU swapping and such... As in, from the second gen RS6 that literally burned down in its first track run in Germany? Serious performance Audi, but you are headed way the wrong direction if the reliability point was at all serious.

Hannibalacp82

My experience is the dealers suck. It's typically one for the country so they have no need to provide you with quality service. They are a clearing house and that's it. I tried to buy an updated navi disc and Audi themselves told me to go to my local dealer...nothing online at all.

Also far too many people buy the cars and then dump them in 2-3 years. Insurance didn't even want to insure my 08 because it is " so old sir".

The smoking deal I got upfront is because of these issues and some of those savings are going to go to paying the premium to get anything done on the car over here. Then again I pay around 27USD to fill the tank.