21st Feb 2010, 20:33

Love my car!!! Mine has 110,000 miles on it. Bought it used with about 60,000. Have had no major problems. It's beautiful, safe, fast and sexy!!

I live in NorCal and my Audi dealer's service seems expensive. I haven't had the best luck with them fixing the issue the 1st time. I found a foreign auto mechanic who seems more reliable, but I'm a bit nervous about their lack of Audi experience.

I love that this car is rare. I'm a bit of a snob that way, but people who know always ask - is that an S8?!!! It's also great fun to go soaring past a Corvette or two. Just smile and wave...

16th Jul 2010, 11:21

I bought mine at the beginning of the year after reading many of the useful posts on here, I just had mine tuned at DNA Tuning, the owner runs one himself and has developed several maps for it. I'm running the Stage1+ version, awesome!

29th Jul 2010, 14:42

For the guy that had the S8 tuned by DNA;

1. How much was it?

2. Was it difficult getting the mapping done? Did you do the install yourself, or did DNA send it to your local shop?

3. Their website claims like a 21 hp gain, what do you say?

As far as I can tell, DNA is the only place that has tuning for the 02-03 D2 S8, so I'm interested.

Thanks.

22nd Dec 2010, 22:08

To the guy looking to modify his S8 and is looking for an alternative to the DNA shop. I've had really good luck with a PES engineering supercharger set up. Kinda pricey but the extra 100 hp well make up the difference.

Good luck and happy holidays.

P.S. I am not a PES employee or in any way associated with the company, I'm just a guy who bought their package and is tickled pink with it, cheers.

25th Feb 2011, 10:51

I've had my 01 D2 S8 for just over three years. It is, by at least an order of magnitude, the finest car I've ever owned. I paid around 22k for mine when it was 7 years old and had 62k on it. I now have just under 90k, and the thing has run flawlessly.

There have been some minor issues. I had a few ignition coils go bad on me, which are wear items anyway. Once replaced it worked great. I did have a strange indicator from the instrument cluster: it was telling me I had low oil pressure. I had the car towed to the local Audi dealer and they told me that it was actually an instrumentation issue. I told them to order a replacement (to the tune of $1700), but after a week or so the indicator went away and hasn't returned. I canceled the part request for the instrument cluster, which worked out well, because they couldn't locate one anywhere in the world.

Brakes have never been an issue for me. I have had the pads replaced but that was normal wear.

I am currently running Bridgestone Potenza's - they are great and much gripper than the standard Michelin's, but I doubt they will last as long. They actually come with a mileage rating of 40k I think. I would recommend having the car aligned every time you rotate the tires. I paid for Firestone's lifetime alignment - I think it was $140 for as long as you own the car. The wheels are always a bit out. That could be because of our famously bad roads here in PA. And when they are out, the car does tend to pull slightly on the highway. With this much power and AWD, you can wear tires out very quickly if it's not well aligned.

Some of the others posted about rattles and squeaks. I can confirm that it does rattle, but it's really not that bad. I only notice it when driving over a driveway berm at an angle, when you get the chassis to torque, it does make some noise. Otherwise the car is absolutely rock solid on the road. Saying that it's confidence inspiring really doesn't even do it justice.

The acceleration from this car is so linear. We have a lot of hills in my area. This is one particular on-ramp near my home that goes up a steep 1 mile hill, and if you gun it on the round-about, I can be doing 100 mph before merging into traffic. By the time you get to the top of the hill, you're doing 130!!! Never an issue getting into traffic.

This thing seems to have a hidden boost button on the floor pan just under the accelerator pedal. When you ease into the throttle, it moves, but once your moving, if you mash it into the floor, this thing will kick you in the a$$! No kidding.

As for high speed driving, it's just phenomenal. The only car I've ever driven that was in the same ball park stability wise at 140 mph was a Ferrari 355 spider. The Audi is only about a half a second slower to 60 than that car. And while it doesn't sound or look nearly as good as the Ferrari, I can't get my wife and three kids into a Ferrari - well not at the same time anyway!

Gas mileage is as expected. I average about 16 mpg on premium gas, but I drive a lot of hilly, back roads and my commute. On the highway on a long trip I get around 23-25 if I'm driving the speed limit (which is never). If I'm driving quickly I'll get around 22. Not bad for a V8. It doesn't have a highway overdrive gear (thank god), but since it's an over square engine with gobs of torque, even at 2800 rpm's at speed it stills sips the gas.

I am considering the ECU flash from PES, but not sure if I want to mess with perfection. 22 hp and 18 ft/lbs sounds nice though. Only $795 which isn't bad. I'm also considering a custom exhaust, which will make it sound a lot better. That would be my only complaint about the car is it doesn't have that growl that the D3 S8's do - the Lamborghini V10 would be a nice upgrade too :-). A local aftermarket shop quoted me a price of $700 for a custom stainless exhaust. Should add a few horse power as well.

If you are considering the purchase of one of these cars, I can tell you that they are more to maintain and insure than say... a Honda Accord. But let's face it, you wouldn't be considering an S8 if it wasn't worth the extra coin. The funny thing is, it's not that much more on your wallet than an Accord. Yes, you're going to spend more money and it's going to cost more on gas and insurance. But you only live once.

I plan on keeping my S8 for the foreseeable future. Never in my life have I still been in love with a car after 3 years. I get board very easily, but with this thing it's different. It's like a Swiss Army knife. It's fast and fun when I want it to be, and calm and civilized when I need it to be. I can put my three kids in the back and fill the trunk up with groceries and strollers, and drive home through 6 inches of snow on Thursday, and be at the track running down vets and 911's on Friday. Try that in an Accord!

12th Mar 2012, 10:31

I know how to fix this for good. Get cyrogenically altered rotors, like Frozen Rotors. They will likely last the life of the car. Get the drilled version. Get good quality pads as well, like Hawk HPS. Then get the wheels (all 4) Road Forced balanced (Hunter Road Force machine). You will now only be replacing pads every 50,000 miles or so. Every 25,000 re-Roadforce and rotate the tires. Should save you thousands on brakes, tires and front end bits.