This car has 170k miles, 2005 A8L 4.2L engine.

The owner claims the battery is dead, he is about 2hrs away from me.

I'll bring my own battery charger/jump pack. He claims nothing else is wrong with it besides that.

At 170k miles, what should I look out for?
I'm handy with tools and have a garage to work on this car with.

How likely is it that this car's engine won't live past 200k miles?
What about the transmission?

The price is really low, and if I need to tune up/ repair within $3k I'll be fine with that.

Or should I just look at something else entirely?
I had an 06 A6 and I loved it, so i'm really looking forward to owning a D3 A8

 

How long has the car been sitting? If it's not been more than a few months and it fires up and runs with no issues, you may have gotten a great deal. Take it for a test drive and if it runs strong, shifts smooth, and makes no unusual noises, I'd say take it. Once it's in your possession, have the timing belt (waterpump and thermostat while you're in there) changed. Also have a transmission fluid and filter change. I had a reputable Porsche, Audi, VW, Mercedes shop (not the stealer..I mean dealer) do the timing belt change (with waterpump and thermostat) a couple of years ago for around $1200. Worth every penny for me as it would have taken me two weeks to do it and they did it in two days. I did the transmission fluid and filter change though. You can get complete kits for this at Blauparts.com.

My 03 D2 has almost 190K on it. We've put 100K on it in the last 7 years we've had it. It's been a GREAT car. Just don't abuse it, do proper maintenance on it, and you should be quite happy with the car. I'm confident that ours will last way past the 200K mark.

Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, the A8's take a huge battery and it's located in the trunk on the passenger side. It's a monster as these cars have quite a bit of wiring in them. Probably the most complicated car I've ever turned a wrench on....

Let us know how it works out.