Hi everyone,

New here to the forums, but not new to car ownership, modification and or self maintenance.

Definitely have some ideas on what im getting into, but This car has always been a dream car for me and I finally have a chance to get one ( Ontop of my 2023 A4 Allroad I picked up last year )

Quick car sheet （ dont be too surprised, I live in China, lots of old gems floating around here )

- 2005 A8 W12 in black with grey interior
- 100,000 km's ( no, really )
- Very clean exterior
- no accidents


OBJECTIVE FOR THE CAR:

- Modernize the car ( ECU TUNE to refresh the timings of the engine, entertainment upgrades, internal power adapter upgrades etc )
- Replace the exhaust with a nice sounding butterfly that I can open/close like I have on my A4
- Replace the 18's with some 19"s or 20"s if they will fit.

Just needs to be a nice, comfortable, old car modernized cruiser for me to go on road trips with here in China.

Prompting the big brains and the generous experience of everyone here:

- What kind of things/traps should I look for mechanically, check before I buy etc
- Has anyone updated or completely replaced the MMI firmware, including the rear entertainment system, to be more modern or to accept modern day devices? I have no qualms about ripping the seats out and replacing all the electronics to modernise the car if I have to. Labor here in China is cheap ( but, not bad quality, i've lived her for 8 years and im fluent, I know what im talking about ) So if it was something bigger than I could handle, I have some good buddies in some workshops here that helped me mod my A4 that can help me do what I need to do here.
Back in the day, getting custom made LCD screens etc etc was the dream, now its probably lucky to be worth $20.

Looking forward to your replies!

 

Interesting, and I imagine an ultra rare beast in that market. Especially from 2005, when China was unrecognizable to today. Was it sold new in China, or imported more recently?

Regards mechanical modifications, not really anything major available. Maybe S8 or Bentley sway bars to sharpen up the handling, but that’s kind of against the whole point of the car. No W12 ECU tunes available as far as I know. Wheels/tyres, plenty of options factory or aftermarket. Biggest factory were 20”, but plenty of 22” aftermarket if that’s your thing.

Does your car have the executive rear seat package? Ie, two Individual rear seats with fixed center console. You can add rear tray tables also. That’s probably the biggest interior upgrade you could do. But it’s lots of work and sourcing the parts will be a fair bit of work and expensive.

In terms of electronics, you can update the MMI to the latest firmware version, but no major changes come with that. Mainly bug fixes, and minor tweaks here and there. Backup cam with parking sensor view can also be retrofitted with factory parts.

The rear seat entertainment is pretty much a stand alone system, so that could potentially be easily upgraded with newer aftermarket equipment. But nothing factory.

But hands down the best upgrade is to retrofit a Mr12volt wireless CarPlay/Android auto interface. It will also support aftermarket back up and 360deg cam, with parking sensor display and dynamic guidelines.

 

Is there actually a 360deg cam kit that works with our cars?

 

The mr12volt CarPlay interface supports a 360 camera. Not sure on how it executes, but it has 4 camera inputs, (F, R, L, R) and options for a 360 camera. I just use it for the backup cam and CarPlay, but it does have further functionality. Wiring in another 3 cams seemed too much like hard work.

 

I've been looking for a kit of some kind that go in the mirrors, maybe replacing the lights there, and got excited when you mentioned it.

 

I think visually a pre-facelift car is much improved by upgrading to the 2010 vertical grille and to facelift fog lights. To see what the end result looks like, see my thread of 9/9/2023 Fog light upgrade completed. The fogs are far from plug-and-play (like logic says they would be) but I have included the pics you need; thanks to Giovanni.

I hope you get much enjoyment from your W12...and dont worry about having twelve cylinders to contend with, the W12 is one of the most trouble free engines Audi has ever produced. And there are 4 fellow W12 owners (that I know of) on AW to answer questions.

 

Oh im not looking for mechanical modifications, more so just like common faults and when at x km's do they fail, eg cam valves, gearbox oil, etc etc.

Mechanical mods wise would just have the butterfly exhaust.

Is the MMI the same as today's MMI where its integrated car status and also the entertainment/nav system? Or is it just entertainment + nav. If its the latter, I can always replace the entire unit ( just install a modern box and still use the factory head screen ).

It does have the executive rear seat package, yes.


As for the car itself, the early 2000's is when the Chinese import and Euro market really opened up, the car was imported into China by Audi from Europe before they built the volkswagon factory here.

These days, anything thats not an S or RS ( or an allroad ) is imported, everything else is made here ( to my knowledge, happy to be wrong )

 

Thats awesome! I'm not sure I would get the chance to have the full setup like that haha but its super cool.

Yeah fog lights I would be keen to do, along with the carplay + the cameras ( Im very used to doing things myself, ex BMW E38, 39 and R34 GTT owner here, and from Australia. Was just cheaper to learn and do it yourself )

There is also a 2010 on the market with decent km's but its also an extra $10-15k AUD.

The idea would be to buy one of these low km oldies and just slowly over time modernise it.


What about the airbag suspension and the airbags. I would assume they would all need to be replaced after 20 years to avoid shrapnel in the cabin incase of an accident, and also compressor or bag failures?

 

Get yourself VCDS as a scan tool. That is pretty important to successfully DIY on these cars. And get a copy of all the SSP material and technical service documents that are floating around. As you run into things you need to repair, simply search these forums. More than likely someone has already done the repair and provided a how-to guide about it. Its hard to say what you will need to fix in a general sense if you don't have the maintenance history of the vehicle. Start with all fluids and a good inspection of the suspension components and the engine/transmission for visible leaks and go from there. These cars are pretty robust and the problems can be affordably managed.

 

The collision airbags were not affected by the whole Takata debacle, so nothing to worry about there.


The suspension can leak and you end up with a sagging corner. And if you don’t fix promptly, a blown compressor as it’s been overworked playing constant catch up. When it does happen, replacement/rebuilt struts are readily available and inexpensive. They’re also easy to DIY if you’re familiar working on suspension. Tons of info on here about it.

But unless the suspension is obviously leaking, it’s best left alone. A compressor rebuild is worthwhile if it’s slow to change ride height levels, but not essential. Use vcds to see the max pressure it’s able to charge the accumulator to. Spec is 16 Bar, but anything 12+ is ok.

Here’s link to all the SSP technical documentation and the workshop manuals. This is an invaluable resource and I recommend you spend time to download them all for future reference. I have them all also saved on an old iPad which is super useful when wrenching.

https://forum.a8parts.co.uk//showthread.php?t=9347