Komeuppance Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 Been trying to think of a new used car for the wife, and S8 does fit the bill: looks good in black, powerrrrrr, mostly(lol) reliable?? AWD will come in handy, but that's not a deciding factor. And their depreciated price realllllly is appealing lol. http://images.pistonheads.com/aimg/903/903256-1.jpg I can't convince her to get an Evo 8 or 9... she wants an auto, plus they're kinda small. Mitsu offerings in a luxo barge/4dr are dismal, Diamantes (02/03) are ok but so hard to find, especially in black. Galants(99-03) could look good with some overnighted parts from Japan. Lexus LS/GS is tempting, but eh... the S8 is much more tempting out of the box, maybe I just need to stop dreaming. Did some quick googling, and the consensus is the weak point is the ZF trans requiring special attention (rebuild at 150k LOL), output shaft seals and CV boots. I've worked on Zee German cars before, annoying but not as bad as I thought they'd be, BMW Vanos ain't so hard after getting my hands on it. Anyway, anyone have some first hand experience with these years and similar models (A8)?? BTW, Ronin FTW. -Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fanta Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 it's german. the electrials will have a problem at some point. it'll cost you. ... go for it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Komeuppance Posted October 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 it's german. the electrials will have a problem at some point. it'll cost you. ... go for it!LOL... Bosch FTL. -Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jszucs Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 Don't the newer evos come in auto? The guy 2 down the street is really into the VW Audis and says to stay away from the AWD one's, the one's your looking for are the "rare" sport models and they are FWD (didn't even know they made FWD one's though they were AWD only) He's had 2 A6's in the FWD config. Says trans is only real weak link and FWD only helps allot with that with less stress on the trans. Said if you thinking A8's eye the phatons to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carguygibby Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 (edited) Get an S8 and have yourself some Ronin style fun! http://youtu.be/HDcWMF44Cjs Edited October 23, 2012 by carguygibby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viper1355 Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 Having done parts for 5 years, I'll never own a VW group product. I sell nearly as many parts for them as I do for Ford Explorers. The only people that seem to like them are people who buy them brand new, or kids who think their 1.8t is fast "because the Fast and the Furious". My dad owned an 03 Jetta and it was junk, broke all the time, mostly turbo related stuff, but I seem to recall suspension stuff going wrong a fair amount. Those are good cars when they're running, but when they're not, the parts are expensive, and you usually need to have a special tool to fix whatever it is. Maybe the high end cars are built better, but I wouldn't bank on that personally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 To quote the great Steven Tyler "...run away, run away from the pain!" Let me put it this way, trans fluid will cost around $250 WHOLE SALE! expect to bent over if you pay joe shmoe price. I love the body styling of the Audi's, but they are neeedy cars. The trannies are weak, the electronics are a nightmare, the price tag on parts will shock you and the damn instrument cluster is guarantee'd to light up like a Christmas tree. Stick to Lexus GS350,LS430, maybe even Infinity but not the V6's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jszucs Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 ^ they generraly get a bad rap because people did not maintain them becaues the parts are expensive. If given what they want on time they are great. I like how the bolts even on the 2000's are still shiney and coated not all rusted in like everything else. Everything has it's own place on the car, most parts are made to be serviced. Only time I have run into issues with specialty tools 100% required has been 06 and newer. Most of the other stuff like say hydro stearing, if it's time for it, you might as well just replace or take to a pro for rebuild. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotStock88 Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 Potamus aka kevin - works on them for a living. He might be better suited to help answer your questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jszucs Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 I guess to sum one up it's kindof like the sports car mantra... buy a sports car be a sport. Buy an audi / VW be a high paid pro and give the car what it wants when it wants it.... run if any of the previous owners were not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Potamus Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 Great car only issues are timeing belt every 100k, if poor oil or lack of oil changes timeing chain tensioners on each head will go bad ( the exhaust cam is driven by the belt and the intake cam is chain driven off the exhaust). The transmission is not as bad as they make it sound. I personally own a 2001 A6 4.2 (in black lol) can't go wrong with a black Audi 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Convette Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 Audis are awesome cars untill about 70k. My family had 5. 3 A4s and 2 A6s. all had their fair share of problems, as it was the newer ones were the worst. The last A6 quattro, had around 75k on it and the windows stopped working, passenger door wouldn't close if you tried to close it too hard.. Sunroof and locks stated going crazy.. Unreal amount of problems for a crazy expensive car. All dealer maintained.. They are great cars to lease, that's about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alp247 Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 I've owned my 2001 S4 for 10 yrs now with 174,000 on it and it has been solid. The tranny issue Audi's have is if you drive it hard all the time and slam it into gears the syncro from 1 to 2 will wear out. A few of my Audi S4 friends went though this with there driving habits. I don't know if you want to call that an Audi thing or a driver thing? Any car will break down and have issues it you don't maintian it. The S8 you are looking at is a beauty. I would pick that up in heart beat. FWD....why even bother get an Audi without that feature. The S8 D2 versions only came in AWD if i remember...only the A8's came in FWD until the later versions. EVO's are great but this AUDI you can really grow into as you get older. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Potamus Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 All A8's are quattro you can get fwd A6 and A4 alot of those fwd cars had a cvt trans and those are big time junk transmissions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burton Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 All those German luxury cars are gonna be damn nice cars, until they break. Only get one if you can tell they were maintained properly by the previous owners, and only if you can get them cheap. Nothing like buying a $5k car for $5k only to have it break and cost ya another $3k... then you got $8k into a $5k car. I love my big Benz, but I got it cheap enough to where if I gotta get $3k worth of stuff fixed, I'll still have less than what it's worth into it. That's the only way I would have bought it. If it was something I was puting my wife in, I'd look at the more reliable Lexus, Infinity or Acuras, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alp247 Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 All A8's are quattro you can get fwd A6 and A4 alot of those fwd cars had a cvt trans and those are big time junk transmissions Note true...not all A8's is AWD... my friends 1997 A8 is a FWD.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Potamus Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 I stand corrected You are right they did have fwd available in 97 only year, I work on these all the time and have never seen one so your friends must be quite rare Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 (edited) Audis are awesome cars untill about 70k. My family had 5. 3 A4s and 2 A6s. all had their fair share of problems, as it was the newer ones were the worst. The last A6 quattro, had around 75k on it and the windows stopped working, passenger door wouldn't close if you tried to close it too hard.. Sunroof and locks stated going crazy.. Unreal amount of problems for a crazy expensive car. All dealer maintained.. They are great cars to lease, that's about it. This be the truth, good up to 70k or so. Only good for leasing, crap breaks have the warranty take care of it. For someone who doesn't wrench, not recommended. Even if you do wrench, you'll get sick of repairing it. My former employee has a thing for S4's, he found a busted one recently. Original owner, dealer maintained with receipts to prove it. @ 120k the timing tensioner bit the dust and there went head and valves. He went to dealer, they told him "grab your ankles and spread 'em wide, this is a big one!" My friend bought it, rebuilt the engine, spent a good chunk in parts not to mention his labor. It runs good, but stuff keeps breaking. Sensor here and there, window regulators, HID ballast went out, interior plastic crap that breaks, buttons that fall apart. This is his 3rd A4 this year, he buys them broken, fixes them, enjoys them a few months and sells them for a profit before they break down again. Edited October 23, 2012 by louswheel01 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jszucs Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 ^ I would again have to question if tensioner went bad at 120K why it was not done twice before that? Guy 2 down loves them but I will say he is ALWAYS working on them.... ALWAYS doing this or that maintance thing to them... and he does shell out allot just doing basic maintance stuff.... it's not like just do one thing it's like do all the timing parts... it's not just do one o2 it's do all 6 yes you read that right 6 02's.... I though he was crazy when he said it had 6 02's until he pointed to them all... then I joked with him and said is that because it's an S6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ucw458 Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 I have no experience with these cars but I trust louis's judgment. It sounds like this car might not be worth the effort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jszucs Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 I have no experience with these cars but I trust louis's judgment. It sounds like this car might not be worth the effort. No they totally are, super nice inside, drive nice, go like mad..... It's just a matter of, are you willing to drop a G and a day of work on regular maintance items that cost you 200 300 bucks on something else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ucw458 Posted October 23, 2012 Report Share Posted October 23, 2012 No they totally are, super nice inside, drive nice, go like mad..... It's just a matter of, are you willing to drop a G and a day of work on regular maintance items that cost you 200 300 bucks on something else? To me that sounds like maintenance issues that should be done most likely get put off because of cost. Then those issues turn into bigger problems. Personally I like vehicles like my 91 toyota pickup. Low miles so it's in perfect mechanical order. Drives nice and is clean on the inside. And wont cost me a dime for repairs for another 100k miles other than regular maintenance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Komeuppance Posted October 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2012 Every time I look at an S8 for sale I start drooling... haha. Evo X's aren't very appealing to me, 8/9's are much better. GS was my previous benchmark in terms of a performance luxo barge sedan. She has an Infiniti(Gussied up Nissan, yes I know lol) now, and the only major problem was the EGR tube getting clogged up. Pain to fix, but should be fine for another 100k, just design wasn't all that great. Drove around for a long while with the CEL coming and going until I got annoyed of it and fixed it. Also, the airbags for the seats have too short a cable and they sometimes cause the air bag warning light to annoyingly flash when the connectors get bumped the wrong way. Easy to reset though. Also the blower motor makes a slight ticking sound when on low speed, TSB for this but it's not annoying. Seemingly small issues, but even the "top tier" cars have them. My friend bought a Range Rover... lol... He and I did a lot of research on them before going to look at some. It's actually not as bad as the horror stories read. Biggest problem was the air suspension compressor getting old, and leaking bags, would cause the suspension to lower slightly freaking out the sensors/computer and defaulting to riding on the bump stops lol. I wired up some switches (front/back... didn't bother with side to side) to control it manually, wasn't that hard to wire up and was fun to mess with... initially. We replaced the rear bags, which wasn't as hard as I expected. Eventually he bought a new compressor ($400) and it's fixed for another 100k. Oh, and the BOSE speaker amps have died... he's trying to convince me to help him replace them, but I usually don't have enough patience for interior panels LOL. There's tons of info and write ups on how to fix issues with the A8/S8's... even a trans teardown and rebuild. Good ol' internet. The trans was used in many other vehicles, BMW's, Some Jags, and Range Rovers... and the general consensus is, crap design. Rebuilt transmissions starting at $1700. Besides that, most of the issues seem minor, like the Infinit's... perhaps I'm optimistic. I have no experience with these cars but I trust louis's judgment. It sounds like this car might not be worth the effort. Haha, doesn't he have a Ford Explodition 5.4... and used to have a Kia Sedona...?? -Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 24, 2012 Report Share Posted October 24, 2012 ^ I would again have to question if tensioner went bad at 120K why it was not done twice before that? Guy 2 down loves them but I will say he is ALWAYS working on them.... ALWAYS doing this or that maintance thing to them... and he does shell out allot just doing basic maintance stuff.... it's not like just do one thing it's like do all the timing parts... it's not just do one o2 it's do all 6 yes you read that right 6 02's.... I though he was crazy when he said it had 6 02's until he pointed to them all... then I joked with him and said is that because it's an S6 At 120k you should not need to have changed timing tensioners on a car 2X's over already, thats every 60K, waaaay too needy of a car if you ask me. Maintenance is just too much for what the cars are worth. That's the reason they depreciate so much so fast. We drove my wife's '01 Avalon 130k before changing the timing belt and mind you all I changed was the belt. Her '98 Camry that she bought new went 120k with the first timing belt. I changed belt,tensioners, water pump, seals at 220K and that was just for precaution. Yes the Audi is a beautiful car line, specially the late models. But the constant needing of maintenance just turns me personally off big time. I would recommend the GS350, they look good, pack a good punch and you will not need to be constantly fixing. The LS430 is really nice ride also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 24, 2012 Report Share Posted October 24, 2012 (edited) Haha, doesn't he have a Ford Explodition 5.4... and used to have a Kia Sedona...?? -Robert Why, yes I do have a Ford I got a deal on it I could just not pass up. And the Kia, my father gave us that new when my son was born. It wasn't bad maintenance wise, just gas wise it sucked king kong balls. We're actually looking ourselves for a new to us used car. I know a broker that two of my customers use to purchase most of their vehicle inventory. Picked up 6 Audi's last week that got me tempted as well. An '05 S4 with minimal body damage, had like 97k on it, purchase price was not bad at all. Too bad I don't do body work. My wife hates anything Nissan, so it rules those out. Toyotas, we've had. Lexus, we've had but would love a newer model. BMW's are fun to drive and they're not that bad on maintenance. Mercedes, unless it's a late model or the upper end models, they look like old people cars to me. She wants an X5 or Land Rover, but I hate both those cars. Edit: Robert, you need to come to Los Angeles to get this one. It's freaking sexy! http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/cto/3336429419.html Or this one, Palos Verde's car is bound to have been pampered. http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/cto/3335235206.html Edited October 24, 2012 by louswheel01 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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