Hey,

i purchased a 53 plate Audi A8 4.2 Petrol with 47k Miles on the clock

Full Audi service history, very clean inside, Dark blue leather with leather stiching everywhere.

Things that have gone wrong or never worked when i purhcased the car 6months ago

Heater control panel - £1,500 inc labour & Vat - Under 3rd party warrenty
Engine mount solenoid - £450 inc labour & Vat - Under 3rd party warrenty
5x Tyre pressure sensors - £350
Window Switch - £120 inc labour & Vat - Under 3rd party warrenty
Mobile Telephone - works sometimes
ACC re-alignment - £600 - I had to pay this, i took the car to be aligned and apparently it caused this to stop working.
Headlight control - £120 - My friend plugged in his vagcom and this stopped working lol

occasionaly my auto trunk closes then re-opens itsself (weird?)
My window wipers sometimes stop in the middle of the screen and move really slowly for a few seconds, then speed up again. (weird?)

theres a few other minor issues which i can live with. just wanted you guys to know/compare with other cars

the car has had an LPG conversion and i get equal to about 50-60MPG on the motorway in a 4.2 petrol.

My main question is

Can you update the MMI so that it has the new look.
Can you update the Sat nav so it has that 3D look.

Pics bellow

 

More recent pics with the LPG conversion and window tints

 

Well the rear truck motor has a variety of TSB's, from everything from bent trunk hinges, cracked motor casing, of faulty switches. Check out the sticky at the top of the page.

You can reflash the MMI to get it more up to date and slightly more features, but it won't change the look as far as i know.

You can purchace the version 10 navigation disc from www.navteq.com for around $300 which will update everything in your map and perhaps change it, you have to ask navteq.

Great looking car BTW, i haven't seen a conversion like that on an A8 before.

 

I also have a 4.2L v8, US version of course
How did you get the LGP conversion? I've never heard of it. How does it work and what does it do exactly, along with where do you get one or how much does it cost?
If you know the conversion to US $.
Thanks!

 

The conversion runs the car on Gas rather than petrol. (petrol on cold start)

you will use approximately 15-20% more gas to power the car, but its half the price in the UK. it burns cleaner. my oil is still the colour of clear honey after 12000 miles

petrol 1.10 per litre
gas 0.55 per litre

i save approximately 40GBP per week with the conversion

the initial outlay was 2150 GPB equal to approx 3300 USD but i will save that in the first year of the conversion on fuel/servicing costs.

maybe the admin could put LPG in the title of my thread?

 

natural gas huh? Thats what it looked like but where did you mount the tank? How much gas can it hold?
Thats a good idea though, although not feasable here in the states, do you lose any power running natural gas?

 

Yeah natural gas >_<

the tank can be a big one in the boot, or a donut (you guys love those :P) tank that fits in the spare wheel space.

my vehicle looks identical to an A8 without gas until u open petrol flap/ash tray/boot lining/bonnet

no performance loss to speak of, maybe 1% on a dyno? i am going to test at some point when i get the time.

i run a PS13 Silvia as a project car approx 350bhp which i was tempted to convert to gas, but to many horses per cynlinder.

there is no fuel pump as such with the gas, its delivered on pressure in the tank/vapourizer.

so if you get low on fuel and you floor the throttle it will resort to petrol. but i mean really low.

i litrally am pushing the gas pedal now

why is it not feesable in the states? gas not any cheaper? how cheap is petrol for you guys?

for approx 30GBP (46USD) motorway driving i will get close to 300 miles on GAS
for approx 30GBP (46USD) motor driving i will get 180 miles on petrol

doing town driving those figures will half.

 

The only vehicles using natural gas here are public transit busses, and UPS delivery trucks.
Natural gas here costs almost the same as petrol so using 15-20% more would be a waste of money. Petrol costs around $3 a gallon (87 octane) Thats roughly 4 liters for $3.
Thats cool you can do that though, i would imagine a lot of folks run small 4 cylinder diesel engines over there.

 

http://alternativefuels.about.com/od...aneconvert.htm

 

With fuel being over 5GBP (8USD) per gallon, running a 4.2 petrol isnt wise.
the LPG makes it approx half that. so almost inline with the costs you guys have.

most people over here unless they have a lot of money will run a 1-2 litre car petrol or diesel. for the larger cars ppl tend to go diesel.

its shockingly expensive to fuel a car.

lots of new cars are economy based here like 1.3 Diesels returning 80mpg etc.