Audi 4.2 V8 A6

[OctaneV8]

Anyone driven one of these, what are they like?

I have driven an '08 A4 3.0TDI and it felt clinical. Noticed the price of A6 quattro 4.2 s are quite low. Is it the B5 type? 99-2000 and something? Was thinking of getting an Avant as a more 'practical' fun car. More practical than a MR2 turbo or Camaro, space wise haha

[Dr G]

All Audi V8s of that vintage lunch their gearboxes sooner or later and a repair is usually more than the value of the car

[Nobody You Know]

I never knew thay did such a car?

What about a slighlty older S6 Plus, these also had the 4.2V8 and Quattro, look amazing and are quite rare.

[missing the VR6]

What about a Passat W8?

[Jeux]

Dr G said:

All Audi V8s of that vintage lunch their gearboxes sooner or later and a repair is usually more than the value of the car

mine did @ 99k miles...quoted £2.5k to fix... but, yes, fantastic cars....and about half the price of an S6 , same body, and 90% of the power....

[stevethegreek]

Hi, my current daily driver is a '99 A6 4.2 quattro tip...same body as the RS6 (wider arches) but with fewer horses! Lovely car to drive, very smooth, lots of power and not too bad on the juice on a long run - have seen around 27-28mpg at motorway speeds although my daily 10 mile trip to the office which comprises mainly town roads and a couple of country lanes sees me return around 17mpg. Don't know/haven't heard much about the gearbox issues - mine has done 83k and still very smooth.

Would be interested to hear more about any known gearbox issues and preventive measures if any?

STG.

Edited by stevethegreek on Monday 20th April 15:31

[entwisi]

for A8 4.2's and gearbox issues look on the a8parts.co.uk forum.

its definately a weak spot.

[misterduncan]

Have been driving one for nearly two years. Frankly amazing car for the money. Bags of power, massively practical, loads of toys, built to last weighs a bit, but really shifts and handles like a much smaller car. Now I have more miles to do, I'm about to sell it

Will be putting it on the classifieds in a day or two!

PM me if you are interested.

[gmarks1]

We had an A6 4.2 V8 1999 for around 12 months; really enjoyed the car; it had every optional extra under the sun, and was good fun to drive. It became rather expensive to run due to a combination of my wife working further away from home (it was her car), and a number of electrical faults and major service items (e.g. cambelts, tensioners etc). In the end I got frustrated by the ongoing expenses and sold it. (it had around 85,000 miles by then I think) - to be honest, most older cars go through expensive spells at some point though.

The car had great performance, but in my opinion did not handle well; too much oversteer, probably due to the weight and position of the engine; so can't agree that it felt or handled like a smaller car - great luxury cruiser though.

Gary

Edited by gmarks1 on Tuesday 21st April 18:51