2011 a8 low67,000 miles engine failure
08-16-2018, 09:52 AM
#11
I guess basing on your statement and lack of name that you could be an Audi rep.
Anyway , does it make a difference if I was second owner and bought the car with 30,000 miles in mint condition?
and followed Audi maintenance protocol for maintenance.
Btw do you really think someone who buys and $80,000 automobile is going to charge right in an abuse the car ? If car is under lease agreement most maintenance would need to be performed.
With a flagship car with low miles you would think they would offer something versus nothing. Not even look at trade value as an option etc.
at 67,000 miles to have a defective part cause a catastrophic engine failure there is no excuse. Btw I m not looking for people to be sympathetic ,I’m getting the word out to Those who might be a buyer of this model or any Audi for that matter to be aware that the company will not help you if you have an engine failure as a result of a faulty part.
I didn’t design the car and no zero about engines but from what I hear with timing chain failures etc some of these issues should fall under recall item from a safety standpoint.
Having car just shut down with zero warning in the middle of the highway sucks.
Anyway , does it make a difference if I was second owner and bought the car with 30,000 miles in mint condition?
and followed Audi maintenance protocol for maintenance.
Btw do you really think someone who buys and $80,000 automobile is going to charge right in an abuse the car ? If car is under lease agreement most maintenance would need to be performed.
With a flagship car with low miles you would think they would offer something versus nothing. Not even look at trade value as an option etc.
at 67,000 miles to have a defective part cause a catastrophic engine failure there is no excuse. Btw I m not looking for people to be sympathetic ,I’m getting the word out to Those who might be a buyer of this model or any Audi for that matter to be aware that the company will not help you if you have an engine failure as a result of a faulty part.
I didn’t design the car and no zero about engines but from what I hear with timing chain failures etc some of these issues should fall under recall item from a safety standpoint.
Having car just shut down with zero warning in the middle of the highway sucks.
I'm in bio med.
But a few things to understand where your dealer may stand:
A) You may have bought a cosmetically pristine used car at 30K miles. But without explicit service history you don't know what maintenance has been done.
B) There is no obligation a lessee do all the scheduled maintenance. Many lessees are especially lax about maintenance (i.e no oil changes for 2 yrs) as they drive it around a couple of years and just turn them in.
As others have asked, what exactly is the failed part? How common is this failure? What could have caused this failure?
Google "Audi Failure Complaint", "Porsche failure complaint", "Toyota Failure Complaint", etc etc you get the point - EVERY manufacturer has cars that suffer catastrophic engine failure for some reason or another. And unless your car is within the warranty period, most times you're SOL
08-16-2018, 03:23 PM
#12
AudiWorld Super User
FWIW, I do not think this is the way to handle it. You won't want to hear that, but honestly if you are coming across here as I suspect you may have with Audi, the result is perhaps incrementally more predictable.
As far as I know not one person on this forum has a connection to Audi. I am somewhat amazed you insinuated that based on a screen name--which about 99% of the posters here use if you had looked for even 5 minutes. This is the leading A8 forum in the country by far, and it actually surprises me never a peep from Audi, no sponsorship, no nothing. I suggest you apologize for that error--classic **** in the punchbowl mistake. If you think it through and your stated objective is to "get[...] the word out," how you come across will in turn have folks decide if the message is valid or not. One of those little tidbits that all fits in the first two minutes of sizing someone up in relationships, as a variety of studies have shown. A8 owners tend to be more seasoned and older as well, at least until they turn into 3-5th owner type cars as the pricing drops through floor with time.
Meantime, honestly, not any of this is a surprise as a business matter to me either. You are not the first owner, so there is no stronger connection by either the manufacturer or the selling dealer that can sometimes help. The one fact you have that might help is the 5 time Audi owner. But, if those are used ones--and especially if private party purchases--less so. I personally am on my/family's 6th. Two were private/used transactions, four were dealer.
Car is also stated to be at 67,000 miles, and it is 7+ years old. Warranty is 50K, 4 years, so not particularly close where sometimes they make an exception. Given the literally tens of billions they have paid out on Dieselgate, not surprising either they have tightened up a lot on customer good will type stuff. I sense it even on in warranty servicing, where the dealer is being cross checked a lot more than 3-5 years ago. On the substance of it, the motor in that year was a well proven design with decades of deployment and improvements. Not one at this stage known particularly to have "teething" or first year intro issues for example. As several replies have mentioned, it would help to know what the issue was. Like others, I can't make much out of the description, other than some kind of internal issue maybe involving oil circulation. Not particularly on the known issues list, and lots of high mileage ones around on original motor, whether similar or up to two generations older. From being on the D3 forum for 10+ years, literally the number of fully blown motors is maybe two hands worth that have been posted--with posters themselves now having turned over 3 or 4 times along with the cars, and some approaching 300K miles.
As far as moving on, what would make sense as has been discussed in a few earlier replies is looking for a quality used motor. Certainly there are 2011 and 2012's that have been totaled. Quite a few by now given the drop in values for any older big luxobarge type vehicle. Lowest miles, hit other than in front would be my obvious preferred spec. No flood (or fire) ones, which there will be too.
As far as I know not one person on this forum has a connection to Audi. I am somewhat amazed you insinuated that based on a screen name--which about 99% of the posters here use if you had looked for even 5 minutes. This is the leading A8 forum in the country by far, and it actually surprises me never a peep from Audi, no sponsorship, no nothing. I suggest you apologize for that error--classic **** in the punchbowl mistake. If you think it through and your stated objective is to "get[...] the word out," how you come across will in turn have folks decide if the message is valid or not. One of those little tidbits that all fits in the first two minutes of sizing someone up in relationships, as a variety of studies have shown. A8 owners tend to be more seasoned and older as well, at least until they turn into 3-5th owner type cars as the pricing drops through floor with time.
Meantime, honestly, not any of this is a surprise as a business matter to me either. You are not the first owner, so there is no stronger connection by either the manufacturer or the selling dealer that can sometimes help. The one fact you have that might help is the 5 time Audi owner. But, if those are used ones--and especially if private party purchases--less so. I personally am on my/family's 6th. Two were private/used transactions, four were dealer.
Car is also stated to be at 67,000 miles, and it is 7+ years old. Warranty is 50K, 4 years, so not particularly close where sometimes they make an exception. Given the literally tens of billions they have paid out on Dieselgate, not surprising either they have tightened up a lot on customer good will type stuff. I sense it even on in warranty servicing, where the dealer is being cross checked a lot more than 3-5 years ago. On the substance of it, the motor in that year was a well proven design with decades of deployment and improvements. Not one at this stage known particularly to have "teething" or first year intro issues for example. As several replies have mentioned, it would help to know what the issue was. Like others, I can't make much out of the description, other than some kind of internal issue maybe involving oil circulation. Not particularly on the known issues list, and lots of high mileage ones around on original motor, whether similar or up to two generations older. From being on the D3 forum for 10+ years, literally the number of fully blown motors is maybe two hands worth that have been posted--with posters themselves now having turned over 3 or 4 times along with the cars, and some approaching 300K miles.
As far as moving on, what would make sense as has been discussed in a few earlier replies is looking for a quality used motor. Certainly there are 2011 and 2012's that have been totaled. Quite a few by now given the drop in values for any older big luxobarge type vehicle. Lowest miles, hit other than in front would be my obvious preferred spec. No flood (or fire) ones, which there will be too.
Last edited by MP4.2+6.0; 08-16-2018 at 03:37 PM.
08-18-2018, 05:11 AM
#13
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The part they claimed caused the failure was some type of freeze out type plug which failed and wouldn’t allow oil pump to properly pump oil to engine. Most say they haven’t seen it happen and that this particular engine is bulletproof with the exception of timing chain issues etc. I am hopeful to find a lower mileage engine to swap out ,
the dealer did do the recall items coolant valve and wiring harness which will be replaced on used engine.
It looks like I’ll be out $8000-$10,000 and found a reputable local guy to do the swap. I did ask if it was good idea to have timing chain issue dealt with prior to new install as I would hate to run into this issue after going thru all of this.
He thought it would be a good idea.
I didn’t know prior how difficult tearing down this model for engine swap was.
the dealer did do the recall items coolant valve and wiring harness which will be replaced on used engine.
It looks like I’ll be out $8000-$10,000 and found a reputable local guy to do the swap. I did ask if it was good idea to have timing chain issue dealt with prior to new install as I would hate to run into this issue after going thru all of this.
He thought it would be a good idea.
I didn’t know prior how difficult tearing down this model for engine swap was.
08-18-2018, 11:49 AM
#14
AudiWorld Member
What timing chain issue? There is no issue with the chains other than the old 4.2 which was the tensioners bleeding off oil pressure. My old 4.2 in the 05 A6 would rattle on startup for about 160,000 miles (started to rattle real bad about 40,000 miles), never posed a problem and ran forever till it was totaled at 200,000 miles, but man did it clatter when starting for a couple seconds. My 2011 A8 4.2 has no such clatter, but has a bunch of other issues that keep it from being called reliable or trouble free. Funny that 2005 I had was the only Audi we ever owned that I'd call reliable. All the rest of them we've had have been problematic. I wished I could buy me a brand new port injected 2005 or 2006 A6 4.2 sport pack car, I'd take one of them any day over what I own now.
08-18-2018, 03:21 PM
#15
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The tensioner issue causing the chains to jump and seize the engine. It’s seems most shops know about this but don’t know much about my issue as many haven’t seen the oil pump failure.
08-19-2018, 02:42 PM
#16
AudiWorld Member
Fake news.
Someones feeding you a line of BS. If a tensioner fails and the cams lose time, it won't seize the engine, it will however bend the valves from the valves hitting the pistons. The FSI 4.2 is not known for tensioner issues and I've never heard of cams coming out of time on a late model 4.2 using chains.
The 4.2 is a stout engine and actually pretty reliable. The issues come from the surrounding parts around it, like high pressure fuel pumps, oil seperators, PCV valves etc.
Some of the early port injected 4.2's had tensioners that would leak off oil pressure and the chains would rattle on startup, but even when that happened the cams would not jump time, they would just rattle until the oil pressurized them up and tightened the chain. I had a 2005 that rattled bad on startup for 160,000 miles until totaled and never posed an issue or jumped time.
08-20-2018, 12:23 PM
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Again I’m not an engine guy at all. Just giving what I have read and heard online and from local shops.
I do know one thing is if it happens it wont be cheap to fix. It’s not like break out another thousand it’s like dig deep for much more. I wouldn’t be as disappointed at 160k miles but 67k is a little different.
I do know one thing is if it happens it wont be cheap to fix. It’s not like break out another thousand it’s like dig deep for much more. I wouldn’t be as disappointed at 160k miles but 67k is a little different.
09-18-2019, 08:40 AM
#18
AudiWorld Member
I just had car moved from Audi dealership to reputable shop.
We are working together to determine which engine and distributor we decide to use. I personally would like to get engine with lower miles and do it right.
Audi short sold themselves with me as I had owned 6 prior to owning this car and had s meticulous documented maintenance records. It seems there was nothing I could have done and Audi said it was just a one off situation and they’ve decided to not offer any goodwill.
If they even offered money for my car towards s new vehicle would have shown some class on their behalf. So they have lost a long term customer.
What does blow my mind is I can get used engines with higher miles then I have now with longer warranty than if I bought new.
Anyway I have always loved the cars and the drive but without a 1st class company I will never buy another one.
We are working together to determine which engine and distributor we decide to use. I personally would like to get engine with lower miles and do it right.
Audi short sold themselves with me as I had owned 6 prior to owning this car and had s meticulous documented maintenance records. It seems there was nothing I could have done and Audi said it was just a one off situation and they’ve decided to not offer any goodwill.
If they even offered money for my car towards s new vehicle would have shown some class on their behalf. So they have lost a long term customer.
What does blow my mind is I can get used engines with higher miles then I have now with longer warranty than if I bought new.
Anyway I have always loved the cars and the drive but without a 1st class company I will never buy another one.
If not why would anyone expect Audi to fix it?
03-28-2022, 03:34 PM
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Same issue
I just had the same issue. 2011 A8 with 76k miles. No warnings, car died while driving, immaculate service records... catastrophic engine failure.
I think Audi just lost another customer.
I think Audi just lost another customer.