Hello guys,

Since i posted my intro in my new members area, I will keep the intro to minimum.. Pretty much bought a 2008 Q7 Premium, with 140K, this will be driven mostly in the winter by wifey ( a very mellow driver), as she prefer to drive the Chevy Volt in the summer. The car was only owned by only one owner, the guy did pretty much the basic maintenance religiously, the car runs and drives great, i noticed it pulls a bit to the right.
So as a new owner- I'm hoping this car will last me some time even though i got it for a very good deal. I owned Benz, and bimmers in the past and had great luck with some Indy bimmer mechanics, but they're strictly BMW, so for now I'm thinking of using the dealer for the initial service, and looking for some recommendations as I'm absolutely rookie to Audi world.

1. Detailing in/out
2.Engine Oil
3. Transmission oil/filter- even though its a sealed transmission i rather have it done, bit concerned at 140K if it was never done before.
4. Brake/Steering/Radiator fluid flush
5. Brake pads and rotors
6. Tires replacement(looking for recommendations), balancing and wheel aliments

This is pretty much it for now, and if all goes well will continue the regular maintenance and hope i can take this bad boy to 200K+.

Any input or recommendations will be appreciated.

 

Hey there. So I noticed no replies to your post! I am also a new owner of a 2008 Audi Q7 4.2. I just bought mine used less than a month ago. Right now has about 150k on the clock.
I posted a new thread hoping for some advice on a few issues I’m having and hopefully I can get some responses.

I wanted to follow up with you specifically and see how your Q7 has treated you so far? Looks like you made your post back in August of 2018 so I’m replying back to you on a whim that you may see my response.

Any major mechanical issues so far?

Thanks!

 

Hello and welcome!

I don't have the 4.2, I have the 3.6 Engine, so I'm sure if everything will apply to you. The major issue I has was the low coolant warning I got, for some strange reason it needed about half of gallon of coolant, never seen a single drop of a leak anywhere. The shop did a test and wasn't able to find anything, haven't seen any more warning since then(back in December). With 140K+ timing chain was about to go and a ticking time bomb, that work is not cheap and, but you can damage the engine if the chain break and pretty much you have to replace the entire engine, regardless it's a $4K+ repair cost. The car runs great, the previous owner took care of the car, but I still had to do the timing chain. I wish I did not do the oil fluid change first as I would had saved some money. I really like the car it runs well now and I'm hoping it will stay like this for 1-2 years after that I will get rid of the car. I don't think it was a wise move to purchase a car with so many miles on my part. I hope you have a bit of better luck than me, between timing chain, fluids, tires, breaks it set me back thousands of dollars.
If you hear some ticking noise when the engine starts, go check it out and get an opinion from at least 2 shops, and if you do decide to get the timing chain done,
o that first before changing/flushing, such as transmission, coolant, engine.
Great car overall and wife loves it. Definitely getting another Q7 once we sell this one.

 

That was fast! I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get a response on a post almost a year old but thanks!

I’ve really weighed a lot on the fact that I purchased this with 150,000 miles. Some say I was crazy and other mechanics have told me that 150k isn’t even broke in yet for an Audi and to expect 300-400k miles out of these if they are well maintained.

At the moment my issues with the Q7 are minimal but concerning. I’ve got a nasty oil leak and so far it was diagnosed as the crankshaft oil seal. More serious than that is a misfire on cylinder 2 while under load. Mechanic diagnosed that as potentially bad fuel injector since plugs and coils have already been changed. Needless to say I’m actually taking my Q7 to a local German auto shop today to drop it off and have the oil leak fixed and injector replaced. To the tune of about $1,000 bucks.

My tires have about 30% tread left and I got a quote from a local tire shop- $500 bucks mounted, balanced, installed to do all 4 tires. Mine are on the 20” rims. Honestly that’s a really good price for low pro 20’s. Tire brand I was quoted is for Kelly tires, not a bad brand at all. Certainly not high end but in the midrange they are good tires.

My brake pads are visually low. I have no pad replacement warning light on the dash... Not even sure if my Q7 has the brake pad warning indicator or not but I can visually see that they are thin. Somewhere in the 3-4mm left on them. I’ve always done my own brakes but I need to do some research on how to remove these calipers and the proper install process. I read somewhere that these calipers are 6 piston and since they are German of course the bolts will not be standard but I imagine they are some type of star/hex bolt.
Ive seen insane posts about people replacing their brakes and shops charging upwards of $2,000 to $3,000 dollars to do the brakes! I’ve never heard of such an insane expense just for brakes. With such a heavy vehicle I wouldn’t want to go super cheap on economy brake parts that will warp and burn up in a month but I will never spend 2 or 3k to have brakes done. Having said that I just need to do some research on brake install procedure and start pricing out parts. Figured I’d start my snoop on RockAuto.Com. I’ve always had great luck ordering from them as long as you make sure you’re paying attention to part numbers, etc.

As far as the timing chain- I have no idea if this one has been done. I have a lot of upkeep records but the records aren’t complete. There’s a high probability that it has not been done. However, the engine is smooth as butter. On start up there are zero tell tale signs of a stretched chain, chain tensioner guide noise, nothing at all. I know the ECU will compensate to a degree on tiny chain slack but I’m not hearing anything indicating an issue with the timing chain. Also did a full read out of the ECU with my mechanic via VAG-COM, nothing in the system indicates there was or has ever been an issue with timing. My random cylinder 2 misfire is not related to the timing chain.... totally unrelated.
If the chain does need to be replaced then so be it but I can’t afford a $1500-$2000 dollar tear down to get at the chain and at 150k miles I have to wonder if such an invasive repair is worth it?
With the amount of stuff that has to be removed just to get at the timing chain and the reassembly it seems to me that there is a high risk of causing more issues when I don’t have any timing related issues right now. Again though if the chain did snap it would destroy the engine.... So who knows!

You say you had a constant low coolant warning? If the coolant is vanishing then it’s likely steaming off somewhere. Then again your pressure test of the system should have alerted to a failure point. BUT I have had mechanics pressure test vehicles of mine and state there is no leak and the pressure is fine, when there actually was a leak but they didn’t wait the required time after pressurizing the system to even see if there was a drop. Had that occur on a Chevy Van years ago... The windows kept steaming up and I knew the heater core was failing. But the mechanic did a pressure test and looked at me like I was stupid because it held pressure just fine. A week later the heater core entirely failed and pumped coolant behind the glove box and filled the passenger floor board. Luckily this was an employer issued fleet vehicle, not owned or maintained by me, so it was on the fleet mechanic for the poor diagnosis. Moral to my story here is that pressure tests are not always going to indicate a problem, especially if the leak is very small and the mechanic doesn’t wait long enough after pressurizing to check the results. You can’t pressurize a system and check it 30 seconds later with an expectation that it’s either leaking or it’s fine. It’s engine coolant... not human blood pressure lol.

 

A timing job for $1500-2000 I would've have done it in a heartbeat. I called at least 5 shops and the cheapest quote I was given $3000K. Not sure the type of tires you're getting, but damn that is a very good deal.
Breaks are due soon on our truck, but I would probably buy my own pards/rotors and have the shop install it, probably $200 for labor. The dealer will rape you even for an oil change they wanted $250 I believe from my local Audi dealer.
As far as the timing chain there is no tearing down brother, the entire engine has to come out, some shops will tell you ( or told me they can do it by removing the front bumper and so on) that's BS the engine has to come out 20+ hours job easy, I hope you don't have to go there.
Yeah, was told that these cars can go 200K-300K on these engines, but I also read about it that 100K average for timing chains. The questions is how much money do you have to invest to reach 200K+ miles.

 

Yep... Definitely not interested in paying 3k or more to have the timing chain replaced. If it was done previously then great, if not oh well. After the repairs I’m doing now, plus brakes soon, and tires, paying for a timing chain replacement would far outweigh the value of the vehicle. I’m just going to take as good of care of it as I can and hope for a few more years of good life left in it.

Just dropped it off at a german auto repair shop today to fix the misfire issue and oil leak. Hopefully in a few days I’ll have good news to report. Keeping my fingers crossed!