Audi’s aluminum A8 is a handsome beast. There’s nothing retro or classic about it – the rounded shape is bang up to date. Despite its soft styling it still looks strong, as a big car should without being overly aggressive. The rear end is square, but the kicked-up flanks look perfect.
Despite ... Read review
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A review by jonlucaz on Audi A8 2.8 September 10th, 2000
Author's Car rating:
Safety
Good
Comfort
Excellent
Road Handling
Good
Looks
Excellent
Features
Good
Advantages:
Looks Stylish
Disadvantages:
Low drag in corners
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full car review
Audi’s aluminum A8 is a handsome beast. There’s nothing retro or classic about it – the rounded shape is bang up to date. Despite its soft styling it still looks strong, as a big car should without being overly aggressive. The rear end is square, but the kicked-up flanks look perfect.
Despite being quite light, the 2.8-litre version is certainly no hot rod, with just 174bhp and 185lb ft of torque on offer. The 3.7-litre versions obviously improve substantially on these figures, but add seven and a half grand to the asking price at the same time. The 2.8-litre takes 11 lazy seconds to reach 60mph and the in-gear times are sluggish, too. In the engine’s defence it feels smooth and strong, if not quick-revving. The automatic gearbox is partly to blame. It has no ‘sport’ mode, and while it swaps ratios smoothly, it often refuses to kick down.
The A8 is fine around town and on the motorway, but once the speeds start climbing on twisty A-roads, it becomes bouncy. Show the A8 a tight bend and its nose starts to run wide in a fairly predictable fashion. Be aware of that and it can be cornered rapidly, but takes a lot of getting used to, because the steering feels vague and light.
The Audi’s cabin is well designed and solid. The plastics are of high quality, and there’s lots of woodwork. The front seats are firm and comfortable although they lack side support, and there’s plenty of room both front and rear. You can’t fault the rear seat for comfort, but not everyone will appreciate the steep angle backwards. Stowage is good throughout the cabin and the boot is huge.
Advantages: Looks, levels of equipment Disadvantages: Not as punchy as 4.2
The Audi A8 is a pretty impressive machine. It is made out of aluminium (as opposed to the conventional steel) thus making it lighter (and therefore giving it a higher power:weight ratio) than its competitors such as BMW 7.
It's levels of equipment are high with the majority of items being standard - leather, air conditioning, etc. The engine is a meaty V6 providing more than enough power through its 5 speed automatic gearbox (with sequential manual ... ...the better looking cars in its class. It has had rave reviews and even rates as one of Jeremy Clarkson's top 100 cars (albeit the 4.2 Quattro). Reliability on first car was truly awful. Broke down about 20 times in space of 3 years - all a mixture of faults. New car so far so good.
Go for darker colours for a really impressive look. In short, classy but discreet for those that enjoy quality but do not need to tell everyone about it. ...
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Ciao members have rated this car review on average helpful
Advantages: aluminium body i.e lightweight Disadvantages: too much to repair damage
these audi a8s are amazing i have had 2 so far and they are fantastic my first one was a audi a8 2.8 sport which was very nippy and my first bad experience with that car was at 70000 miles when i started to get oil leaks and then my fuel pump started to leak it cost me about £1500 to put that right and a couple of weeks later it had an accident and some inspector said it would cost £3000 to put right and the whole side of the car was dameged so i ... ...£9000!!!! to fix.
My second audi a8 2.8 quattro sports oh well were shall i start these quattros are amazing you can go aroung 50 mph bends at almost 90 even my porsche cant do that so far no probs with this car and ive done almost 65000 miles ...
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Ciao members have rated this car review on average somewhat helpful
Advantages: BMW quality, Appeal, Looks Disadvantages: Not a load lugger, Pricey
...I opted out of my company car scheme last year. Consequently, I spent a very long time trawling the market, looking to replace the company car that was about to be returned (A MB C-Class Estate).
My life style was still the same so was looking for a car I could do 'cruising' higher mileages in for work whilst providing me lots of luggage space for 'activity' holidays few times a year.
I looked at the following (in alpha order):
Alfa Romeo 156 2.4JTD Sportwagon
AudiA4 1.8TDi Estate
BMW 318 1.8i SE Touring
MB C220 Classic Estate
MG ZT-T+
Saab 9-3 2.0i Estate
Volvo V70 2.4 SE Estate (ex-demonstrator)
All of these cars are very competant. My main buying criteria were Drive, Equipment/Options, and Cost of ownership over 3 years - with a max £24k budget. As I was going to be taking out a personal loan (repaid by my car...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
08.01.2003
