My oldest/longest friend finally bought his first "real" car, after years of wanting a flagship and me unsuccessfully pushing him toward something more recent he caved. So while not quite what he really wants but is also too scared to try he is doing his "trial period" of the concept of a high end car with a 130k miles 2003 D2 similar to how I had the 02 LS430.

His goal is the same as mine was, try it and learn while ending up with a nice car in the end for very low (safe) amount invested. If positive he will buy his own W12/equivalent car and use this one as the adverse weather vehicle. His current RX300 is now the official SUV for SUV duty in his life.

The car he found and had me check over is actually the 5th A8 we have looked at and the only one to be worth the time. The rest were too far gone or wrong price/wouldn't be able to get out of it what he put in. This car is a 3 owner, never crashed, no dents or bad paint scratches, all fully correctible etc.....interior may be entirely replaced if we can't get it clean though since it's a light color.

Condition mechanically is good, trans is having the well known pressure regulator sticking issue so I am having the east coast ZF trans specialists send me a fully redone and upgraded lower valve body to bring it back/bullet proof it. Suspension is in shockingly good shape for the age and I was truly expecting to have to do upper arms at least but I think he got very lucky. Timing belt has 20k left before the next change and there are no leaks other than valve cover seep. ZERO rust as is the boon provided by the ASF, I freaking love to see a rust belt car that has no rust whatsoever.

He is fastidious about everything having to work correctly so everything will be fixed, these cars are very well documented and supported unlike the LS series so it will be relatively easy to get it where he wants it. I'm somewhat sad since I was close to buying it myself and putting in the manual trans, but I would much rather let the 4 rings infect another victim so I let him have it lol! Price was amazing, he got the seller down to $1600 with TWO sets of tires and rims.

The cosmetic transformation is going to be fun, I also am very curious to see how he decides t spec the car with options. I know he wants the fridge already so we have reached out to source one.

Anyhow here are initial pictures! I am so looking forward to this! So cool to have a D2 in my immediate circle/have a key to one!



Paint is not as far gone as my other best friends XJR was so it will end up looking amazing once I'm done with it.

Some idiot put a flowmaster muffler on it.....that's getting cut off and replaced with stock or a high end valved unit. Totally unacceptable for this type of car

Badges fell off but we have them all, it will be up to him if they end up back on the car or not.

Headlight are \"cheap" so he may chose to just replace them outright. They are only $300 or so each vs $970-3800 on my cars meaning there is actually a valid decision to be made lol!

Rims are meh, plan is to use the alternate set and have these professionally restored and equipped with PSAS4s


Interior is dirty but has held up well, the huge amount of suede and soft touch is a double edged sword. Amazing when correct but god it looks back and eats your time to correct if left go.

Not my favorite color combo but he may just import a full Audi exclusive interior from Germany.

Rear seats are meh as well, doesn't need outright replaced like the front but we will see how recovery goes.

Rear heated and lumbar adjustments, nothing insane these days but this car does have ALL original equipment and all rear sunshades plus the full laminated glass package.

The legendary Audi V8. Easy to work on, very reliable, and decently powerful with long legs.....the RS6 engine fits in here as well as a manual trans option.... I think you guys can tell why I wanted to buy this myself lol!

Very roomy, the front end comes off very quickly so it's a snap to work on stuff. Again note that somehow all covers are present, that's very rare with these cars.

I will cap off this initial post by mentioning that he has had the chance to live with both my LS430 and LS460 for 3 days and one week respectively. Despite that he still was pulled by Audi instead and between the 460/430 he greatly preferred the 460 for it's better ride and silence......however the way the Germans drive won in the end.

 

5 valves per cylinder?! i didn't realize this car was a 4-door F355!

although i must say it's not a surprise he chose the audi... the germans have always been great at making a first impression, whereas an old LS is something that grows on you over time and works its way into your inner fibers... it continues to improve with age like a fine whisky lol

 

congrats to your friend, but no way i'm driving a 2003 vehicle in 'adverse weather'. in adverse weather i want all the safety features especially collision braking, lane assist, blindspot, etc.

 

I love this gen A8. My dad seriously considered one to replace his LS400. I have an agent that works for me who has one, an S8 that he has totally restored. It’s stunning. The lines and the stamping of the metal, I love how the roof and the body are all one stamping with no weld line. Really incredible car.

Plus they still look great even after all these years.

 

None of that helps you like the Quattro system and superior suspension does. Those are all bandaids that covers for lack of driver attention and have nothing to do with outright performance of a car in bad weather or due to blind sports generated by modern design trends lol!

Lane assists get blinded by snow, auto braking doesn't work 100% of the time and can false positive on you at a bad time and send you into a spin. I have mine disabled for that reason since in snow you can fool the system and it will try for max brakes and upset the car. I would rather have the car be predicable and under my direct control than systems that are less skilled than me.

Plus it's better than an 02 RX300.....he doesn't like wasting money on cars, I'm way more likely to buy higher end than is needed type stuff than he is over property etc.

 

Yeah indeed, it's very surprising how well these have held up and they are so well built and like you said the body lines are awesome.

I have a line on an S8 in my favorite colors (silver over cognac) so I'll probably own one in a year or two when it's current owner imports his dream D2 upon the expiration of the 25 year rule restriction.

For my friends car we will be doing a full cosmetic restoration and I'm excited to see how it will end up. The fact these are all aluminum makes them so much less scary!

 

Yeah and back then them being all aluminum was quite the thing, nothing else like that existed! I remember horror stories about people trying to find body shops and having to have them shipped all over the country so people could repair them

 

Thats the really odd thing to me.....I let him borrow both my LSs for a decent amount of time and he has a strong desire for high reliability. However he still picked a German!

The 5v engines sound really really cool at redline, much smoother than the 3uz in terms of power delivery as well and longer legs. Low end power is less though, the VVT-i system really helped Lexus in these years

 

Cool features, I'll have to see what interesting things were offered inside stateside since a lot of the stuff I have in mind are euro only.

 

well its one thing to read about reliability vs living with (and servicing) something long term... i'm just saying i don't think a week isn't enough time to truly get the feeling for what makes those old LS's so special, not to take anything away from the A8 lol

 

Yeah you are right lol! I lived with the LSs long enough to know the reliability is good but not perfect and since I'm obsessive anyway I might as well own German. Ends up cheaper for me since I only pay for parts and Lexus parts are much more expensive

I still think the LS430 is probably one of the best cars in terms of attention to detail and build for its price, there will always be one in my collection/family and I want to add an LS400 as well. Goal would be to have one of each gen LS with my best one being a max spec LS600 and a imported LS400 with all the Japan only options. The LS500 need not apply since it's not a true flagship

I am already going to do the same with Audis, plan is a D2 S8, D3 W12, I have a D4 W12 and me and my friend are going to swap a Bentley 6.0 into a full spec D5 so we will have the only D5 W12 in the US.

 

Timing belt was replaced when the prior owner said it was but they never replaced the idler or tensioners

Still, it's insanely easy to check and also by far easier to actually do than the LS430 or any Lexus belt engine.

Rear coolant pipe we were concerned about is actually metal from factory on this car, so that's one major annoyance avoided

Front upper arms are torn, you can't feel it yet but they are way past the point of needing replaced


Oil leak on drivers side looks bad but it's just the leading edge of the valve cover. Only 2 hours book time to do both

Otherwise dry/good

 

Looks like he got a good deal.

Always happy to see someone get a win!

 

He is very happy, so far he wants EVERYTHING done and has run up a 25.5 hour tab with me. He is the type to want the cars perfect....he is also paying for a 3 stage correction to the paint and is importing an interior.

By the time he is done with it this will be a very very nice example of a D2

 

so between the car cost and the repairs/renovation, how much will the all in cost be for this 20 yr old audi?