Anybody notice that its on a W plate in the exterior shots and a nice dateless northern ireland plate indoors?

If you got it with the NI plate thats worth a few £££

It's on W908 ULE

LEZ 2500 is on a Peugeot 407GT

I would be tempted to pay for an AA/RAC inspection as that normally clarifies any major issues and also gives you bargaining power for discount due to anything that they find. . .

Is that a fair price for a cat D?

Difficult to say - depends more on the condition now than anything else. You'd struggle to find any S8 now that hasn't had paint somewhere, just on age and presentation grounds.

The spec isn't stellar, but it's better than quite a few, so if a future investment wasn't the ambition it could be OK value.

I think it's a fair price given the mileage (if the history checks out - and especially with the gearbox work too). It's not a new car so I'd expect/allow for a degree of fettling.

My hesitation is based on a (futile?) attempt to work out how extensive any damage would have had to have been for the insurers not to pay out for the repair.

AA/RAC inspection route no good as over 10 years old.

I'll try and get up to see it for myself - thanks for the advice thus far!

You could try to find an Audi Indie Specialist nearby and get them to do a pre sale inspection, I did that with mine which was over 400 miles away when I bought it+++

It's very hard to sell insurance write-off car, in most occasions I would say it cuts regular price in half. If it is decently repaired and you intend to keep it for a long time there is nothing wrong with buying write-off but if you only keep it for a short time you need to consider that it will be hard to shift and will need to be very cheap to attract interest.

The 'slight' bubbling will annoy you on an otherwise tidy looking car, and will be expensive to sort

The Cat D marker is never going away.

Good straight and tidy S8's are going up in value, leaving poorer examples to drop in value.

The fact that this has been for sale for some time now and is in its last 24 hours suggests no one is jumping at it.

PF badges are expected on W reg, that's normal.

Nice colour combo, but not a great spec.

Personally, I'd avoid a D2 with a write off flag, and especially avoid one with previously repaired body damage. At least a front end bump is bolt on / off bits and once fixed is probably going to be fine.

I think 2.5K is far more reasonable for a car with these issues.....