2011 Audi A8

• Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 5 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 6 stars

  Perfect but imperfect...

  by fpetersg555 on November 26, 2012

  Pros: Outstanding suspension, powerful yet smooth engine, standard & optioned techs, LED heads, interior build quality...

  Cons: RELIABILITY a joke = primarily electronics

  Summary: This is my 2nd Audi but 1st 2012 A8L with 16K miles already! The performance is impressive. Build quality is superb. Reliability? A joke! 7 unscheduled trips to my dealer. ...

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  Summary: This is my 2nd Audi but 1st 2012 A8L with 16K miles already! The performance is impressive. Build quality is superb. Reliability? A joke! 7 unscheduled trips to my dealer. All covered by warranty but considering the $100K+ price one should expect some higher degree of reliability. Some may criticize and simply say it's still an Audi. There is some truth to that argument but a new car leaving me stranded more than once within the first 10K miles is unacceptable. At 4K miles the EGV valve failed resulting in 2 week wait time because dealer didn't have the parts. They gave me a nice A4 to play around with for 2 weeks which I just left in my garage and drove my other baby. Interestingly my 2010 911 had the same EGV valve failure with a very similar downtime. Same supplier parts bin? At 7K miles my automatic trunk switch failed causing the trunk to inop; close was open and open was close. Downtime 4 days. At 7.8K miles my navigation pop-up screen failed to "pop-up". 2 day downtime. 10.2K miles engine malfunction warning light due to another faulty EGV valve. Engine failed on the highway. Turned out to be false alarm but it took Audi 3 days to make that conclusion. How in the hell did it shutdown my engine then? Tech couldn't explain. 12K miles another engine malfunction warning light. False alarm. 12.9K miles the nav failed to pop-up again. 3 day downtime. At 15K miles suspension/trac/sport malfunction. 2 day downtime to replace switch and re-program.
  
  My profession requires that I drive quite a bit and at times for emergencies when I'm on-call. My A8 has left me stranded twice. Don't get me wrong, this car is stunning and it performs very well but regret to say that the reliability remains a very big question. It seems Audi, with the A8 model in particular, is trying to blend technical characteristics from BMW, MB and Lexus but fails to deliver it as a reliable package.
  
  Perhaps it's just my luck this time around. Dealer and service department service/experience is OK. Service staff lacks important technical knowledge/explanation. Service department is packed with lines out the door. It is by mere luck that I was able to get a loaner during downtime. Otherwise it was a ride to Enterprise. It's going to be time to trade it quick while never entertaining thoughts of another Audi product again. I'm anxiously awaiting for the local Lexus dealer to get the new LS F models. Perhaps a new Bimmer but that makes me nervous because of the reviews I have been reading. Lexus is a bit bland, perhaps a bit on the boring end but their reputation is outstanding. Family members and fellow workers that drive Lexus' claim "zero" defects. Nothing is perfect but if I can stay away from that damn service department as much as possible it will make me a happy consumer.

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• 5 stars

  Perfect tech car for snow white and seven dwarfs!

  by M_Can on April 2, 2011

  Pros: Incredible wide array of options, comfortable if you can manage to fit in

  Cons: Cramped, looks like an A4 but just harder to park, almost everything's optional and pricey, why would you spend almost 100k and buy an Audi when you can buy a Mercedes for the same price?

  Summary: I don't know about you but when I purchase a full size sedan, I expect a couple things that I can not get from any car below that range; ...

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  Summary: I don't know about you but when I purchase a full size sedan, I expect a couple things that I can not get from any car below that range; size, expensive and creative design, comfort, tech toys and etc. To be perfectly honest, the A8 does not satisfy any of these conditions...
  
  As a 6'4", 200lbs. guy, I remember the very first time that I sat behind the wheel of a Lamborghini Diablo 6.0 . Not because it was incredibly fast or mind blowing fun to drive but because it was cramped. As a matter of fact, I've needed a friend of mine and two other guys in the dealer to literally shoehorn me out of the car (they've really used a long metal shoehorn for my back!!!) while my foot hooked the center console out of it's place. As the new owners of Lamborghini, Audi seems like liking this design feature very much and adept it on every car they make. The A8 -which was a short wheel base- is incredibly tight and cramped, especially for a "full size sedan". The front seats are comfortable but in order to have a decent leg room, you need to push the seats way back and for the back seats, there's no headroom what-so-ever (think of Eagle's coupe's back seat headrooms in mid 90's!!!).
  
  Even when you manage to ignore the cramped space inside, the outside is no prize either. If you're looking for striking good looks, look away from A8 to anything else that you can see. This is just an A4 that's harder to park because of the longer wheelbase (but the same cramped volume inside!). The designers of Audi are probably the second laziest designers in the industry (the first ones come from the mother company -Porsche!!!) and all they seem to do for the outside of the cars is to increase the size of the parts for an A4 in steps to make A6 and A8. And I believe there's a reason for this approach, focused marketing!
  
  This A8 is built for people who wear shoes which guarantee additional 3 inches, that does not care for outside looks and/or able to surf the web or other manufacturer's dealers to see that there many other cars that provide more for the same amount.
  
  Yes, the interior craftsmenship is incredible and Audi offers almost every toy -and some more- that you can think of but almost all of these are charged extra. The B&O rig sounds great but not that great to worth it's price tag (as a matter of fact, I don't understand the logic behind purchasing a B&O system either, it's all Phillips bits and pieces inside for 10 times the price!). The seats are comfortable and the quality of the nav screen is as good as BMW's 9" screens. Audi keeps bragging about it's 3D graphics engine for the Nav, but I just find the bird's eye view 2D rendering much easier to peek (after all if you try to enjoy the quality of the 3D while driving at 100mph, it'll be quite fun to watch you from outside while you rear-end the 18 wheeler!). Once again, the gadgets are available but get ready to pay enough money to purchase a smaller Audi on them, if you decide to have 'em all!
  
  So, as I've mentioned on the "one line summary", this is "the" car for the seven dwarfs, perfect interior size, expensive enough for their copyright earnings from the Disney and enough room for snow white in the trunk if they decide to take her for a drive along with them. And when they look from outside and guess the interior space according to it's exterior size, they might even mistake these seven fellas for normal size guy!

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  1 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 10 stars

  Exceptional vehicle!

  by NeedForSleep on August 31, 2010

  Pros: Unlike one other user mentioned, this is the lightest car in it's class and it's lighter than some midsize cars weighing in at 4045lbs (Curb weight). This allows this car to get exceptional highway mileage for a high horsepower V8!

  Cons: Conservative styling, but if you agree with this then the new 2011 A7 will be more to your liking!

  Summary: Audi is always setting the bar for interior design and how well they integrate technology in to the car. They always seem to do it with a less confusing way ...

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  Summary: Audi is always setting the bar for interior design and how well they integrate technology in to the car. They always seem to do it with a less confusing way than most other car manufacturer's including the Lexus, Benz, and BMW.

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  0 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 10 stars

  Awesome Car

  by italopaula on August 27, 2010

  Pros: Great Tech, lots of technology.

  Cons: Expensive and it is very heavy.

  Summary: The iPhone connection is an Apple problem, not an Audi. the apple bumper does not fit with half of the chargers on the market. Just change bumpers to a non ...

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  Summary: The iPhone connection is an Apple problem, not an Audi. the apple bumper does not fit with half of the chargers on the market. Just change bumpers to a non Apple one.

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  0 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 10 stars

  This should be the new face of head lamps creativity...

  by presplayTechnologies on August 21, 2010

  Pros: Extraodinary

  Cons: It is an Automaton

  Summary: The front view is so perfect, it a welcome development.

  Summary: The front view is so perfect, it a welcome development.

  0 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

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