For the price of a lease car deposit - Audi S8 d2

[fastgerman]

The psychology of buying cars is changing with more and more of us opting for the attractive leasing deals. I too have given this a try with a 2016 Mercedes C250d. However, calculate a deposit of near £3k + just under £300 a month for 2 years and you have spent almost £10k on a car, which you are just going to hand back with nothing to show for it.

There are then further charges for contracts, early termination (if you can’t quite get the timing on the next lease), refurbishment costs to alloy wheels and body work dents etc. On the plus side you have a brand new car and don’t have to deal with the public when it’s time to sell.

Next, there is a number which we are willing to pay a stranger in exchange for a car without any come back or warranty. It seems to be around the £15k – £20k mark before we want the safety of buying through a dealer. Therefore you purchase something like a Porsche 911 approved used at £40k, keep it for 3 years and think it’s worth £30k, which it is from the dealer but not by you.

Which brings me to the other end of the market with the easy buy and sell. It’s the £5k – £10k like a Golf GTI or my newly acquired Audi S8. This is a truly wonderful thing and it should be costing around £80k in 2001 with a full Audi service history and 81k mikes. From 1999, the S8 was updated and the most note worthy improvement was that big 4.2l V8 being given an extra valve per cylinder and 360HP taking the 0-60 time down to 5.5 seconds. The 5 speed tiptronic gearbox includes shifting buttons on the steering wheel and sport mode, more than adequate for what you’ll be getting up to in the 5 metre long aluminium limousine. Onto the weight of the thing, given the scale and torsen Quattro system, the figure is only 1750kg due to the aluminium space frame chassis. Safety features are also high and being the first car awarded with 5 star driver and passenger ratings along with front, rear and side airbags, the only non-current missing item is iso-fix.

Let’s not forget this is a Movie Car, an A List of a movie at that. Attempting to be sold by Robert De Niro and drifted through Paris by ex-F1 racing driver Jean-Pierre Jarier. This is the NOS equipped Audi S8 d2 in the film Ronin, arguably the greatest car chase in film history.

“Larry, Can you tell Vincent what it is you need”? Larry: “Something very fast. Audi S8. Something that can shove a little bit. I’m also gonna need a nitrous system.”

Performance – 0-60 in 5.5 and limited to 155, however understand some have made it to 170mph.

MPG – somewhere around 20 if you’re not fleeing the scene with precious metals.

Competition – this car now falls in the future classic / young timer category. I was considering a Mercedes 500E, however these are now over £20k for a good one. Others include BMW 7 series, Mercedes E55 among others.

Servicing – Audi charge £255 for an interim service and £699 for a major. Cambelt on this one was replaced at 64k miles. Month 1 of ownership was met with a bill for £1700 including - disks, pads, 4 tyres, service, brake fluid, parking sensors and system check. At least the Audi videos are amusing showing the broken parts.

What next - There is some hesitation at lower rpm. Nothing came up on the system check so could be filter/plugs/leads related. A rubber squeaking sound from the front passenger side to be explored. To service the gearbox or not service the gearbox, that is the question. A full Audi service history present and they say not to.














EDIT:

Readers Car of The Week Oct 2018 - https://www.pistonheads.com/news/general/audi-s8-d...


WF51EOY, 2001 Audi S8 D2

Edited by fastgerman on Friday 26th April 15:44

[fastgerman]

Thanks Guys

Yes cambelt change, the car is now on 81k with a full Audi history.

On buying, the car had been standing with a number of minor issues, that said it was an mot failure due to a variety of issues all rectified at Audi Guildford for the price the car cost. So it’s now a £6k car to me. Hopefully appreciating, however ;-).

[fastgerman]

A fine motor car :-)

https://youtu.be/wS8zlFwgBmY

Like him or not, the video above mentions this is the first car that Audi made to compete with Mercedes and BMW and win!

I wasn’t aware of the plastic sills on some d2 models - assume they are just removable trim?

I did consider a supercharged e55 and a similar year RS6 but thought i’d try the S8 given the current price.

Completely agree with the joy of tinkering!

[fastgerman]

Not too quiet ;-)

https://youtu.be/I1CAf_w60CQ

[fastgerman]

Cheers Guys, I think the seller could have achieved a higher price with a 12 month mot and a bit extra work but when I picked it up, the car hadn’t been used much. It was wearing Landsail tyres mixed with Bridgestones down to the canvas.

Audi price matched AO (Audi Option) tyres with Halfords. They also price matched oem parts.

Having owned various German cars, the dealerships usually ‘help’ when something horrendous goes wrong with the car if it has a full dealership service history and you are a regular. So, if my car does lunch its gearbox then Audi can consider the car has a full Audi service history and at the same dealer I bought a new S4 Avant. They also fixed my old S5 a few times. We’ll see...

Then there is the nice service, refreshments and courtesy car convenience ;-)

Edited by fastgerman on Tuesday 2nd October 09:40

[fastgerman]

Just about to tick over 82k

Mpg is low due to an Italian tune up on some high ron fuel, which has removed the hesitation at lower rpm :-)

[fastgerman]

Thanks Matt for featuring the car :-)

Cheers for all the comments (even the disaster ones) and especially for the technical info ones - I will look at them all! Cheers

I’ll definitely check out DS Autowerk in Crawley.
In Guildford i’ve used AH Autos in Slyfield on old M3’s and had recommendations for Bellfields Auto Services.

Edited by fastgerman on Friday 5th October 16:42

[fastgerman]

Adrian E said:

Looks a lovely example Miss mine, which was a Final Edition with some OEM+ additions (RNS-E, digital TV, bluetooth) and a Milltek (NLA unfortunately)

You will find lower Isofix mounts on the outboard rear seats - they are VERY recessed but you should be able to get your fingers in there and find them...

Found them! Thank you had no idea they existed in 2001 :-)

[fastgerman]

Great post Gapthree, thank you!
Adrian great picture and loving the purple seats :-)
The Black and Blue/Grey cars look great.
Ben - you’ve had that Lotus since 2012?! Get it fixed so we can Le Mans 2019!

So this morning the car only just started... yes yes I won’t take it to Audi haha.

I still don’t think 1700 was that bad for 4 tyres, disks, pads, brake fluid change, service and parking sensor replacement / system check.

Called Audi who incidentally said they had customers complaining of strange gearbox noises after the service along with some reported failures. Looks like ZF specialist is the recommendation although if Land Rover have the same, can they not service it correctly?

Fyi... I had 2 x BMW’s that had good will work from the main dealer at nearly 90k miles so it does happen.

Edited by fastgerman on Monday 8th October 08:41

[fastgerman]

Adrian E said:

A Yuasa battery from Halfords (find someone with a trade card) with 5 year warranty will work out about £100.

Thanks Adrian, all seems fine now so could just have been me half asleep one morning or the car wasn’t used for a week+

I’ve only done 400 miles since Aug and it only gets used 2 days per week (train to London)

To others - So many comments on the service costs from others, so:

4 x 18” Bridgestone Turanza Audi Option = £640 (price matched with Halfords and cheaper than Black Circles etc) + wheel alignment
Service = £255
Rear disks and pads = £485
Brake fluid change and rear calliper adjustments = £80
2 x Parking sensor replacement and full system check / diagnosis = £300 ish
MOT = 50 and free re-test as failed first time

Total around £1700. Now would I really have saved more than £200 going indi and would I have had a shiny new courtesy car and text message updates ;-)

[fastgerman]

TroubledSoul said:

I got my S6 box serviced and the filter replaced when I first bought it, and after the first oil change it didn't want to know. They flushed it and it was then perfect. The specialist reckoned that the first drain and refill may have seen a bit of swarf end up somewhere it didn't want to be and had caused the issues. Weird, but I'd still get the same done again if I bought another.

Also, take the cover off at the very front of the engine OP and check the two rubber diaphragms have their little plastic arms intact. These often break and rob you of some power and response. Billet aluminium items are available from Gruven parts in America and will never break. If yours have broken, check that you can move the levers they attach to by hand as if these are seized there's no point replacing the arms alone. Audi do not sell the arms on their own, they only sell a £300 kit that contains them! Lamborghini will sell you the arms on their own IIRC. But they are still plastic and will break again.

Assuming this is for the D3 S8 with the v10? If not, have you got a picture for reference? Thanks

[fastgerman]

what do we think - does it look better by a hotel or on a building site :-)

[fastgerman]

Troubledsole and Markiii - no evidence of anything aftermarket on the car. Acceleration/performance seems very good!

Beanmaster - good post on the drainage, will check, thanks

Michael - I agree :-)

Gearbox folk - no reply yet on my query of using an official Land Rover dealers for the gearbox service? Somebody said it was the same gearbox and they recommend servicing every 40k.

I’ve read of failures after servicing on the a8parts forum. Audi themselves tell me they have had customer complaints of noises and failures after servicing.

In the States, they advise servicing with the d3 v10 S8 spec gearbox oil.

My cars gearbox status - no noises, clunks, changes well in drive / on the steering wheel buttons and moved to manual shifting on the lever.

It obviously doesn’t shift as well as my 2015 S4

[fastgerman]

markiii said:

fastgerman, many thanks for finally tipping me over the edge on the should I shouldn't I debate thats been raging in my head for the last couple of years

just picked this up today

Very nice!

Any interesting extras?

Heard about somebody buying one with a bomb detector!

Saw this one on eBay also - quite the options list:

[fastgerman]

Quick autotrader search - Audi S8 + under 100k miles:



Not that I needed convincing in spending some maintenance £££

[fastgerman]

averaging 15 mpg but majority of driving time is urban, good job i'm going to be averaging 2k miles per year unless it becomes the Le Mans wagon :-)

[fastgerman]

Small update:

New battery - no more starting issues surprisingly

Receipts show the car has had in the last 1,000 miles - new rear calipers, fuel filter, fuel pump, coolant change, brake fluid change (although Audi said it was black and changed again)

Squeaking from the front seems to have got worse over bad roads / speed bumps but makes no noise on sweeping corners or faster speed suspension movements. Assuming bushes/top mounts

Lower part of front bumper has a crack, hoping a new lower piece can be ordered instead of the complete bumper

Starting well in -2 this morning, so hoping for a trouble free winter!

Edited by fastgerman on Monday 29th October 15:35

[fastgerman]

Thanks!

They are probably gone also but the sound is closer to the top, passenger side behind the dash, which is why i’m guessing a top mount.

Really hoping it’s not something else that needs the dashboard removing as it actually sounds like it’s in the glove box some times - leaning on the dash / opening glovebox doesn’t change the sound so likely suspension related.

[fastgerman]

Quick update:

top mount was the squeaking culprit.

never had a car that freezes shut so easily, my 2015 S4 opens fine each day but the S8 freezes shut. Could it be old seals or something about it being aluminium?

need to buy a new front bumper undertray as mine is missing:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Audi-A8-D2-PF-Engine-Un...f:0

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audi-A8-D2-Engine-Undertr...

Do they actually do anything if you aren't going over 80 mph?

Thanks

[fastgerman]

steely dan said:

Dr Imran T said:

Not Vaseline as it can deteriorate rubber seals. A silicon spray of sorts is what's needed

https://www.micksgarage.com/d/dash-rubber-and-plastics/products/150332/gummi-pflege-protects-rubber-from-wear-and-keeps-rubber-elastic

Thank you and this works well :-)

Next question....

The chrome trim is a bit patchy, assuming it is chrome and not just a spray that will peel off, can I use a metal polish or G3 rubbing compound on it?

Also, hoping there will be a Goodwood Sunday Breakfast this year with the bahn stormer category