For what my opinion's worth, I think Ian is bang on the money. I bought my S8 with over 100K on the clock, zero gearbox problems. Got the best (IMO) service available via CAT and the thing starts misbehaving badly 9 weeks later
.
CAT told me about the "disturbing the sealed box" theory and from my experience, this actually happened.
It's back at CAT as of today and I'm waiting to find out the cost - drove it there in Tiptronic and it was faultless, until I kicked down or pulled away from first: she turned into a ghetto gangster hopping suspension thing - quite comical when I wasn't dabbing tears from my eyes. Looks like a primary clutch or torque converter issue.
Graham at Chester Autos sympathizes and says they just rebuilt a ZF box and on finding that it was quite good inside, charged 1200 rather than 2K so fingers crossed.
The recon 'box will be guaranteed for 12K miles or 1 year (not 2 years like some places
), so I'm inclined to ask for them to replace anything that even looks dodgy, knowing that 1675 plus fitting is the "warts n all" cost.
I've asked them to look for any revised/upgraded parts from ZF in the build (noting the changes internally from Ian's thread).
Also, could have sworn I heard the steering pump whine when I was cornering today - hmm, where's Ian's business number.
Priced up cambelt change too (with water pump) and even Audi said "take a breath" to the local Independant -nearly 400 quid in parts before the water pump.
If the gearbox fails again soon, she'll be getting a "hard impact test" for the cogs from the top of Dover cliffs....
I say that, but I drove her faultlessly for 20 mins late last night, sunroof open and that V8 with those quad pipes makes me forgive all her little foibles. I call mine her, because only a woman could be so temperamental, stunning to look at and make me smile whilst draining my money so quickly! Seductive ol' barge - I should declare myself a mug!