Reliability of high mileage D5 A8 4.0T

A8 All/ S8 All
#1

I’m hoping someone knowledgeable might be able to offer me some advice about the D5 4.0T 8sp and how they hold up to higher mileage.

I am looking around for comfortable people mover to drive 25k to 30k miles over the next 12-18 months. My local Audi dealer just brought in a 2018 A8 4.0T 8sp with about 130,000 miles on it, so I figure plowing a bunch of miles on that wouldn’t make much of a difference in its market value. They’re asking $14k USD and its vehicle history report looks clean (no accidents, no salvage, etc). To prepare for going to look at it on Monday, I looked through some of the posts in the A8 section here, but the majority of the A8 information appears to be related to the D3 (and some to the D4). In the end, if the general consensus is to simply stay away, that would certainly be good to know, but if there’s a good chance this vehicle could go another 50k miles with only regular maintenance-type things, I’d be fine with dumping it cheap or parting it out at that point.

From the vehicle history report I can see that it had only around 40k miles on it at the beginning of the pandemic and around 115k miles on it a year ago, so that suggests its previous owner was a first responder, perhaps doctor or surgeon or something like that. The report also shows annual registration renewals, but unfortunately only two maintenance records show up (oil service). Up here a lot of the Audi dealers don’t report maintenance activities to CarFax, so the lack of service records is not specifically alarming in and of itself. I will be sure to ask the Audi dealer for service records when I go in on Monday to look at it.

Just for context, I currently own a 2014 RS5 Cab, a 2016 A5, and a 2017 R8 V10 Plus & have been doing most of the maintenance on them. As such, I already have VCDS and some Audi experience, so if there’s anything I should check on this D5 A8, please feel free to be as technical as necessary.

Thanks for any and all info!

#2

I own a D4 S8 and my wife drives a D5 A8. Strong car. The motor is better than the S6/7 IMO it’s better than the RS7 bearings maybe there’s a bit of a difference. My A8 I got a deal on as it had a cam error code. After fixing that it’s a strong car. You see a lot of used 4.0T cars in the higher mileage. And due to the fact the A8 isn’t quite in that same sex appeal as the S6/7 RS7. They tend to stay less modded. So I’d doubt your potential has been touched.

I wouldn’t shy away from it for that price. But I would highly suggest you add about 2 to that price and do full maintenance. Everything from the plugs to the coil packs to the turbo oil screen filter (a must IMO) I found that as you mentioned Audi isn’t big on reporting to carfax but if you check the Audi system if the car was maintained by Audi they tend to keep great records and that would help seal the deal.

In closing. For the price it’s a solid deal. I’d take it.

#3

Amazing, thanks so much CountVohn! Really appreciate how quickly you responded. I will ask the dealer (which happens to be the same that I go to for my other Audis) for detailed service records from the Audi database. If they can provide something showing that it’s been reasonably well maintained, I’ll definitely go have a look.

Also thanks for the suggestion to do the plugs, coil packs, turbo filter screen etc for an extra 2. This is intended to be a road warrior that I can plow the miles onto for the next 12-18 months so reliability over that time is fairly important.