The front air springs will wear out around the 100k mark, and you can pick up a repair kit from audi for about $200 per corner. It comes with a new firestone airspring, upper and lower sealing O-ring, new strut tower bolts, and a new solid rubber strut mount bushing. They are actually pretty easy to change out with a few metric wrenches and torx sockets.
If you did them yourself, both fronts will run you around $500, if the dealer did it.....$2,000+.

As for being bias, i've owned 3 audis, none of them A6 or A8, but working on them for a living for 5 years lets you really know whats better inside and out. If you don't know which one is better take each apart LOL, both are well built, but the A8 is genius. Its like the engineers designed it with a constant woody.

 

Had to say something to get the A6 crowd going

Much better pricing on suspension than I was thinking. A8 keeps on looking better and better... I will have to test drive several more. There is a private seller only a few miles away from me with an A8 that I'm going to check out.

Anyone else see a lot of problems with the 2004 A8? A 2005 might push me a little higher on price than I want to go.

I'm thinking that the 2007 A6 S-Line was not a fair comparison to a 2005 A6.

As for pricing, I'm seeing a fair amount of 04 A8s with around 80K for $18-$20K list price. I figure at least $2K under any asking price would be around the final price. Plus, I have a broker checking auction prices for me out of PHX.

 

A8s are genius... but to big for me. When I was looking to buy a car I was considering a 4.2 A6 ... or an S4. If the the 4.2 A6 I was looking at was black on black (like the S4 I bought) and had the right 4.2 wheels (it had 3.2 wheels WTF?) I don't know what I would have done. Although A8's are the bomb ... I'd go with a later model 4.2 A6 between the two. Just a personal preference.

 

I have owned an A6 4.2, and now own an '01 A8L- The difference between the two cars is NIGHT and DAY. The A8 is, IMO, the single most under-rated luxury sedan in the world. The Aluminum body creates a car that is both rigid and communicative at the same time. The car is incredibly quiet. My A6 was just not the car that my A8 is. Of course they are different cars, that are meant to be different.

 

the a8 interior is made of the same stuff as the cheaper ones. the leather is better in some of them, and there's alcantera, but everything else is the same.

fyi, i am an audi salesperson. i have seen hundreds of these cars. trust me, the interior goes first.

 

Ah...now I understand why you speak of the original owners (and cars) with such contempt.
I'm sorry, but an Audi salesperson saying "trust me" ?
I'm laughing too hard to type any further................................

 

To me A8 vs A6 is no contest. I've driven enough of both to see absolutely no advantage to the A6 at all. If size is a problem, get a SWB A8. The thing that really impresses me about the D3 A8 is that it feels much smaller than it is when I'm driving it - even more so when you push it to its limits. Having driven an A6 (current gen) and A8 back-to-back, the A8 actually felt smaller and nimbler than the A6. Flogging an A8 up and down Hwy. 1 outside of SF was every bit as much fun as doing the same in a Miata.

l8r)

 

Think what you want. I'm an honest guy, and an audi enthusiast. I come to the forums to help the community.

I don't have contempt for original owners. Some people don't take good care of their cars though, rich or not. That's a fact. And you can tell, right away, by looking at the condition of the interior.

I love these cars, all of them, new and old.

 

True, many do take better care of their interiors than others and it can say a lot about the cars general treatment...But,...

All things being equal, I have a real world example about materials and craftsmanship from one platform to another. I actually own a B5 with the highest level of interior trim available at the time, that just happens to be the same age and equal usage of my D2...same climate, same drivers, parked in the driveway next to each other right now. Starting years ago, every non-metallic material in the interior of the B5 began to decompose..every plastic piece, hinge, handle, **** etc (most of which are either metal, metal reinforced or much higher grade composite in the D2) crumbling apart. All the leather throughout is cracking, shredding and splitting open...the wood veneer laminate is cracking on it's own, including the shift handle. Even the material covering the top of the dash is completely different...the D2 being a much higher grade, sun damage resistant material.

The D2 interior is almost perfect...the only sign of interior wear is fingernail scratches on the inside of the door pulls and slight surface wrinkles on the edge of the front seat leather...nothing close to a crack. All wood laminate perfect, never a broken interior accessory. You could park a car on the center arm rests...the B5 center arm rest is all plastic construction, including the broken hinges. These 2 cars share NOTHING in interior equipment or materials.

I've also driven and looked at a lot of C5 A6's (a couple of friends have them) and found a little higher quality, with a mix of A8 and A4 quality accessories and materials...in every case a greater degree of degradation than an equally driven A8.

The fact is, from bottom to top platforms, there are radical differences in interior quality, accessories, materials and fit.

 

fair enough. that is probably true of the older ones. i'm thinking 03 and newer. but you're right, the hinges are better in the a8, especially in the center armrest, i'll give you that.

And i suppose the full leather makes a difference too over the seating surfaces.

the buttons and MMI pieces are the same though. and those wear too easily.

in the new 2011 A8, they're using machined aluminium for the buttons. that's a big difference.