tanya_charbury

> Cool thread and good idea Tanya.

Thank you :-)

> Here's one that's been on CL for about two weeks. It does not list any specific problems. Looks to have some minor scratch and dent and under 200K miles. Northwest Arkansas area:

I’d consider this a good deal. I’d check if the car reverses crisply including with the engine revving above idle; if it slips then the transmission might needed to be removed, repair and replaced due to likely “F” clutch issues. If the clutch “A” drum is not OK the car would be in limp-home mode going forward, but that’s substantial enough that the seller would probably have mentioned it whereas subtle slipping in reverse, the seller might have glossed over.

How recently and how well the camshaft timing bels was done is a question to ponder. Plugging in the Ross-Tech software and running a diagnostic can tell whether the camshafts are misaligned with the crankshaft, on the 40-valve A6 V8 4.2 engine -- so it’s likely it can do the same on this 1999 A8.

As to the scratches and dents, so many A8s are silver that swap-out body panels of the right color are fairly viable to find. For me, anyway.

When I buy an A8, I focus on the seller more than the car. Does the seller have the sort of mindset that would fund only superficial fixes done by clueless techs, to try to correct issues? That sort of thing has made Audis I buy more expensive for me to fix, since I have to undo the damage caused by the badly-done fixes. All in all, the higher-quality the individual, the more likely the A8 would be a good buy.

A8s tend to appeal to the more-discerning buyer, so that bodes well. I spent a week in Huntsville a few years ago, and some of my friends live and work there. Last I heard, Huntsville had the highest concentration of PhDs in the country due to the presence of NASA and related high-tech places. So perhaps the A8 had a highly savvy seller, which means this A8 seems like a good deal to me.

Many smart folks tend to sell their Audis before the utterly self-destruct, so the smart person selling the car doesn’t mean that the smart move is to not own that car. It just means: in the personal context of the seller. My situation is simply different so for me it'd probably be a good deal. Incidentally, I’m writing this post, as my own silver D2 A8 parked just twenty feet away. I love that car.

~Tanya

ThaboTheWuff

That sounds like a great idea. I've has a 1999 D2 since 2006 and she's probably not going to last much longer as she is in need of a timing belt change and because she also has an oil leak too it's probably not really viable for me to do the job since she's probably worth about $2k tops. Front suspension needs an upper control arm and I've been in need of a rear subframe busing for quite a few years now .... However she did get a reconditioned $5k transmission in 2009 so it may be worth it just for that. The body is also is in very good condition, with very few dents.

I'd like to move up to a 2002 A8 perhaps, obviously with a recon tranny and stability control. Don't have a lot of time to fly out and get one, I doubt I'll find one locally even though Colorado has more than most places so not sure how you could help.

tanya_charbury

Road trip!

Plan A might be to find a 2002 A8 or sale in northern California, then drive your A8 out to where I am, just east of the Nevada/California border, and then I buy your A8 and you drive home with your new-to-you A8. I'll drive shuttle for you, if you like. Or, if you find one in Las Vegas or LA, same deal, assuming the math works out to mutual benefit. We'd just need to coordinate as to timing and cash flow. I already have four early A8s and one more would be fun.

Then again, the work you're describing that your car needs doesn't seem all that daunting, to me. So plan B might be that I buy your car, do the repairs it needs, and sell it back to you for more, so it's a mutual "win." Maybe drive your car here, borrow one of my cars and then bring it back later.

My degree is in accounting and auditing but economics was one of the mandatory courses. This was in South Africa so the curriculum lauded South African apartheid racist socialist economics, and I wasn't very receptive but I bought some used American college textbooks and read them after class, and I learned how a much, much nicer and better country works. I learned and liked market economics.

I then went back to Germany but what I learned about America inspired me to come here and see for myself. I loved what I saw, and I became a US citizen. Anyway, the American books I read made the point that "value", "cost", "price" and "worth" are tricky concepts. Until then I was using them interchangeably and nowadays I try not to.

Applying this, I can imagine that for most of us, our A8s are worth more to us than any buyer we're likely to find, which is why we hang onto them. Or in the terminology of the American books I used to read, how much we value them is more than market price. I gather your point is that you're concerned about overcapitalization, and understandably so.

I suspect most of us on this forum are guilty of that anyway. I certainly am. I've spent more on my silver 1998 A8 than I'll ever recoup but the sheer joy of finding a deserted Nevada road and then flooring it ... watching the needle kiss the red-line and then fall only briefly before rising again ... mhm. And the way the car looks, inside and out ... mhm. It's hard to park it and walk away and not do an over-the-shoulder last glance ... mhm.

I also own the equivalent A6 Quattro 4.2 V8 but there's just something about the A8 that's ... to put it in a way that most readers on this forum might appreciate: driving an A8 is maybe like having Supergirl or Wonder Woman as your girlfriend. Fundamentally it's no different than miss girl-next-door but the quality of the experience makes everything SO much nicer. Is this a good analogy?