Oldish Audi A8’s - any experience of owning

I’ve had a couple of D2s.

A 1995 4.2 Quattro Sport and later on a 1999 2.8 FWD.

The 4.2 was a £750 shed, albeit a very fast shed. It had many issues, some fixable, some not. These are complex cars and not very easy to work on. It needed fixing fairly often but always made it home. They drink a lot. I once made to 30mpg (long run, driving like my grandmother, tailwind etc). Early 20s more typical, late teens if driven harder. Hard to drive hard for long in the UK though as proper rapid.

The 2.8 “economy” version was a much nicer example but not without its irritations. Entirely adequate at wafting around and actually quite quick. A champion mile-muncher. Also reliably in the late 20s to early 30s mpg. Late 30s possible on a run. The PO claimed to have seen 40mpg a couple of times. I couldn’t do it. Worth noting that the 4WD of the 2.8 is nearly as thirsty as the V8 and slower than the FWD.

The big killer of these cars is gearbox problems. The ZF 5HP21 used in the V8s is described as “sealed for life” by Audi, who don’t mention that it’s a short life. ZF say 40k oil change intervals.
The failure rate is around 85% by 120k if not serviced. Pre-mid ‘96 examples used the 4 speed 4HP22 are tough, if less refined.

They also commonly suffer water ingress to the cabin due to a series of poor design choices. One of these leaks in particular (known as “Boatengs hole” in the D2 world) delivers water directly to one of the major relay boxes….. with entirely predictable results.

Suspension wise they have a very similar layout to the A4 B5/B6/B7 with similar problems.

A decent example is a properly nice car. Not terribly easy to find now.

Take a look on the A8 Parts forum
forum.a8parts.co.uk/

The big engines petrol versions are incredibly rapid, I'm pretty sure they have a 155mph limiter, a friend had one with LPG which made it reasonably economical to run with no reduction in performance, it was great till it shat it's gearbox which spoiled matters as he never trusted it again. I was offered it but again the potential for the gearbox to let go expensively again put me off.