My fiance drove our new s8 today and didn't notice that it overheated until she got home. Only when she heard the warning "ding" did she look at the instrument panel. Even then she did not see the temp gauge buried. She pulled into the driveway a minute after the "ding" and I came out to a puddle of antifreeze that poured out of the resevoir cap. I refilled it, waited 1/2 hour drove up and down street and the temp gauge climbed again. Immediately parked before she got too hot. I'm guessing Thermostat. My concern is....could the car have suffered further damage from driving overheated about 1-5 minutes? NO performance loss, not sure if engine sounds louder or different (only owned it a few weeks and haven'y been under hood.

 

my overheating problem required new head gaskets. (it was a 96 A6 w/130K mi) at least thats what the service guy told me it was from.

 

I would think that 1-5 minutes is not severe enough to cause a problem. If it did cause a problem, most likely could find it with a compression test.