Talk to me...
 

...about S8 stresses!

I am going through a wobbly period and need some sense talking into me, I have had this gorgeous car since January and I am constantly stressing about it, coming back to wherever it has been parked and finding its suffered damage.

So far I have had to have her repaired twice under an Audi approved garage and she's arguably in better cosmetic condition then when I bought her, I also have peace of mind on the repair as I get an audi warranty for the work each time, but I find the psychological part of ownership now to have changed quite dramatically and I am always worried about where I park the car.

Mechanically she's been a dream, no issues, but I am increasingly thinking about selling and buying something with a smaller footprint in parking spaces as this thing seems to attract the wrong sorts.

I parked far, far away in the empty bit of costco's car park, in a wide bay parking yesterday, only to come back to it and find that even though there was over 30 spaces available, some idiot parked right next to mine and barely inside their own white line.

I checked her over and all ok, no damage, but W T royal F

I know I am not alone in this and have seen several lovely cars on here suffer at the hands of idiots

I hear your pain.

I always worry about the D2 parking it mainly due to utter morons who also use the car park.

My solution is the A2 for the little journeys and shopping etc, great car and takes up no room.

Then the D2 can just be polished and taken on the more important trips.

The trouble is you are a true car lover and any vehicle you buy will be cared for by your good self in the same fashion. The root cause of the problem is the other road users, not your car, even if it did have a smaller footprint.

1 solution I have considered is to have a drone hover directly over my parked car, filming directly down in glorious HD with various alert features sent directly to my phone.

The camera is linked to the DVLA to check MOT & Insurance status and can also distinguish the make and model of all cars to alert me if a (insert car of your choice) is attempting to park anywhere near.

It also conducts a full body scan of the occupants including BMI to see if they have left enough room to get in & out.
If not it can announce various health warnings via an onboard PA system.

Or I might buy an A2 like Sir WIll.

Me too ^ I don't take the D2 out unless I know I have secure parking at the other end. If there's an doubt (like the station, or Tesco) then thats a job for the A4.

I was pretty lucky with my first D2 as it was my only car at the time so I went everywhere in it. How it never got dinged in a car park I don't know, but the S8 is too special to risk these days.

Its amazing how a lone car will attract others in a car park :Confused:

you are not alone..............................
i was so careful with my white A8 where i parked even to the tune of leaving somewhere i had gone to because the parking spaces were to small
doesn't matter where you go there will always be parking numptys
i dont do this but my friend in his Q7 always has 2 child seats in the back and parks in family spaces if he's not happy with the normal ones
(how very dare he indeed)
this is one reason why my vehicles are so low milage as i use the Galaudi most of the time
sad init
there will always be careless toohats out there ready to pounce on all our nice cars

The only benefit of my wifes disability is that she is entitled to Blue Badge. Whilst I only use it when shes onboard it is a real help. The extra space afforded by the wide spaces and the cross hatching between spaces is a real comfort. Even then, some seem to have problems navigating the space between with a trolley. :(
I will not take my S8 into the local town and park in normal spaces unless absolutely necessary. I have even cycled rather than do that :eek:

From what I have seen of parking space standards is that they are based on a "standard" car of 4.75 x 1.8m. Hence 90deg bays are 4.8x 2.5m with a min width of 2.4m and parallel bays should be 6x2.4m but can be as small as 5m in length.

Yep you aren't alone, I try to avoid taking my S8 for little trips into town and shopping too, I'll use my Lupo most days. I can chuck that around and I don't really give a crap what happens to it to a certain extent but not in the sense that I'll park inconsiderately and fling my door open onto another person's car!

Good to hear I'm not alone in my fears but the common thread here is that a second knock about car is order of the day, that's not an option for me as my second car is my track car (which I don't care about cosmetically) but it's certainly not suitable for town and station driving (roll cage, buckets, no interior or dash) and there is no space on the drive for a 3rd car and my wife's fiat.

I really fear for her condition day to day, I've never felt like this before about a car and I've had over 70 of them since I passed in 94, fast, slow, high and low, just not sure what to do now, if I can put away a second pot of money monthly (for what if cosmetics) and accept it (first pot is my what if mechanical fund)

Lovely car, but with two knocks this year not sure if we're compatible

Failing that... keep me posted about drones! Ha ha

yeah, not alone, I hate taking mine (or the RS6 for that matter) anywhere that involves "normal" parking. If I do I usually park in the most remote area of the car park, but like you I often come back to find some ****wit has parked next to it despite there being loads of empty spaces. I have a theory that some people need to park next to another car as they dont have the ability to park straight otherwise:Confused:

I also have an old Fiat I use for leaving at stations, airports etc, I even took it to Keswick on a weekend away of walking and drinking recently as I recalled from previous trips how tight and scarce parking is where we were staying...no way I would have risked either of the Audis round there:ROFL: Wife thinks I am stark raving mad BTW

Costco have GINORMOUS parking bays compared to any other car park so for someone to be just inside the lines :tuttut: :mad:

Brian, we ALL think you are stark raving mad :p

wibble wibble.....

Christ , I thought it was just me , parked outside asdas last night , right opposite the door , looked back as I walked away , as you do , damm its sqint and about a foot over the line at the front , went back and moved it a bit still not right , bollocks ,so I got back in and moved it further away
that drone idea seems a goodun though , launch it out the sun roof and use it to get it parked square

anyone else find it difficult to park it square to a parking space ?

mike

A few excellent examples of how every A8 owner should park in the Great British (minuscule) parking bay +++ +++ +++
EDIT. No A8s were used for this demonstration :ROFL: :ROFL:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1481106715

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1481106715

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1481106715

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1481106715

Yes! The D2 is the only car with which I have this problem too - A4, A6, TT all go in spaces nice and square. Not the D2 - its always crooked for some reason. My colleagues think I'm nuts because I'll get out, look at how its in the space then get back in and move it about until its right :D

It must be something to do with how the mirrors interact with the body lines. If I have enough room I'll open the door and try and line up with the sill trim instead which is straight-ish.

Not quite but I do curb my wheels every now and then when parellel parking. Never known a car like it.

I do find the lines in the rear camera help when parking in a bay.

The mirror tilt in reverse function is quite helpful in getting it straight i find. I think that because its long and wide, the results of being a little bit squint are just more pronounced and makes it more exposed.

Feel for you, we are always aware of the "hit & run" idjits. Bloodie morons out there, at least not as bad as Paris. They do not park there, they abandon them.
SWMBO uses the far back corner in ASDA car park.
Personally I use the bus and block of four spaces.
By the way, stay out of York this Saturday, I'm driving a twelve metre coach there for the Xmas Market. SWMBO is going with me so no speed limits will be broken!!!!!!!

I think you should cut your losses and give up Lee. Drive it down to my house, pop the keys through my letter box and walk away! I shall take on all of that stress and pressure of ownership for you! It's the sensible thing to do +++.

I do understand though sir! I always used to park the D2 is sensible locations, biggest bays and most open areas. I came back to the car one evening, I parked in a covered garage at a shopping area (Weston Favel for you locals) and the builders working on an area were pressure washing the ceiling to clean the old concrete of. Chunks of concrete and dust everywhere. Fortunately not a mark on my car, but the sheer stupidity was astounding! :mad:

Wow, I knew Weston Favel was bad but didn't realise it was that bad with the renovations, that's just pure stupidity, I wonder what their public liability insurance is like?

Your S3 is quite nice, I like the interior in it, much better than I expected but it wasn't enough to tempt me to part with the D3, although I've started browsing auto trader and pistonheads a lot lately looking at smaller cars, wife thinks I'll regret it if I do jump ship, but since getting the car back all I've done is stress about the car, affects my sleep as well, surely that's not a good thing, how the hell do people with lambos and other exotica cope? The malicious envy must be a high factor on those

But a Lambo generally doesn't have to do half the work your S8 does. It gets taken out, taken for a spin, maybe valet parked at a posh restaurant and then garaged again before the fortnightly wash.

Your S8 has to lug people, things, do the daily commute, the weekly shop etc etc.

Lee, I know first hand the stresses of owning these cars. Mine has treated me as badly as anyone's on here. I can't think of anything else at that kind of money I'd rather drive though.

had the RS6 out the other day and looks like there were at least another two like minded "I dont want my doors dinged" Audi drivers in the Asda car park at the same time:D

apologies for the appalling quality phone pic:o

Car now for sale :mad:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthrea...202#post122202

Let the Market decide...
 

Hi Mate,

Commiserations about the situation: I 100% wouldn't keep summat that I was worried about. I couldn't help but spoil every trip with fretting, wish I wasn't that way but with a motor like yours I would be even worse! :-(

Idea. Print a letter and push it through the letterboxes of neighbours around you. I know you said you had only a couple of immediate neighbours but maybe others a couple of streets away would LOVE to have a car on their drive for a few quid a month! (Not the S8 but what about your track car??).

When we moved into our house near Barnsley FC's ground (Oakwell) there were very few parking issues on the drop curb in front of my long-ish drive.

Until Tuesday 11th of March 2014 when Leicester brought a million fans who found they couldn't park! A quick thinking German Car Owner (sorry, BMW) drove past, saw us coming home and gave me £20 to park on my drive! :ROFL:

To that guy seeing his team and looking after his car was worth £20. That is clear thinking. Money is there to buy you what you want; that is what he wanted.

I sold 'cos I wanted £20 more than the ability to move out of my drive with a car for 3 hours. Oh, and I was running an ancient Rover 620 at the time so wanted to show off to my neighbours! (Being Barnsley they weren't fooled...).:o

So. How much is having more room to park your car worth? Apologies if you've thought of this or tried already but so many of us won't ASK and then PAY for what we want...

Robert

Wifey was laughing at me the other day as we drove into morrisons car park ,
" now , where's all the nice audits parked " I said as a ( semi) joke , " there's 3 over there " she said , pointing , perfect q7 , s5 , and an a4 , all black , and taking up 5 spaces , I stuck the 8 next to them , " I can just about see the store from here " was her only comment

Mike

Car is a tool that does a certain job. Any tool being used will get marks and wear. The car can also be artwork. It does not work well if you want it to be both so you need to decide if you want it to do the job or if you want to keep it in glass cabinet.

I can totally see where this could matter to some car owners. Especially with cars like ours, they are top of the range so that puts them sorta in the "prestige" bracket and thats what they are to us, our babies lol. I personally dont have a problem with parking mine in car parks etc, I do like to take care of my cars, mechanically and asthetically and have been lucky (up until recently...) with having no damage been done to my cars by others.

Recently though, lol, my A8 was parked outside my house and some nugget in a van ran into the back of it, damaging quite badly the O/s rear corner (lights, wing, bootlid, bumper etc) Contacted the police, waste of time, werent even interested as I didnt get a registration of the other vehicle as it had done a runner! I found the culprit myself the next day with a bit of snooping about and it turns out I knew the driver (have known him for a long time) Anyway, he did the decent thing and repaired the car to a very high standard and without dealing with insurance, result!

So, onto parking bays lol. I drive artics for a living so, if I cant park a car the size of our A8s, I'm in the wrong job lol! Whenever I go into any parking bay, my car is always perfectly placed within that parking space. If some nugget cant park their car in a space properly and then cant get in their car once I've parked, then thats their problem and usually I look for that type of nugget to park beside lol!Now I know I'm tempting fate by doing so, so I usually take a picture of the other car before I walk away and check my car on return as I'm usually never parked there for more than half an hour. I've come back to my car at times to find the other driver waiting to get back in their car and take great delight in the ensuing conversation lol!

Different story with my bike though, it is never left where I cant see it and I'm usually no more than spitting distance away from it as that is my true pride and joy and would hate for anything to happen to it because of some nugget!

See attached
Lexus and Merc driver took parking to another level. I was waiting for the Merc driver to tell him what I think about pr1cks like him but got feed up in the end, shame.

I would have reported the prick for doing that, he clearly had no respect for you or your property to bugger off and leave it.

I did report it to the police at first but they were not interested as they had no registration to go on. It only took me four hours to find out who it was, something the police could have done themselves with the same information I got. Once I found out who it was, I gave him the choice to sort it or replace it as he did not want the police involved, I knew if it went through police/insurance, then the car would get written off and I'd be back looking for another car. He came good and sorted it out and the police lost out on getting another statistic to massage their figures. I was very disappointed in the whole attitude of the police and their lack of response and I got my car sorted without having to deal with police or insurance and got my baby back sorted to a very high standard, so I'm happy with the outcome

parked in the "Don't want my Audi scratched" section of the Asda car park again today:D

I have found that our local ASDA has a whole car park available for our A8 between 01:00 and 05:30 every weekday morning.

That is the only time to go shopping there.

back again....

Audi owners seem to have the same opinions...an A5 and mine last week +++

:ROFL:
A question which frequently occurs to me in similar circumstances is whether to park up close to the white lines bewteen you and the other vehicle in the hope that it makes the bay between you too tight for others to get into. But that might just provide a challenge to some idiot who ALWAYs seems to want to park next to other cars no matter how many free spaces there are! Youll come back and find some SMart car in there, for instance.

Tractor, all those parking issues just go away.

If the carpark is empty no problem, but if it's busy i don't think it right someone should have to drive around the carpark for ages looking for a space and there are cars taking up 2 spaces. Don't drive your car if you're frightened to use it, or just don't take it shopping.

I'll quite happily do this

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1504010788

Yes but youve got an ambulance Dezzy so when some massive bloke lands you one for parking it two nano-millimetres away from his pride and joy, at least youve got medical facilities close by! :rolleyes:

Fair point

The other tactic is to park in between some expensive cars. Reverse the scenario, park next to some £50k plus car so they will be worried to scratch their car on some old Audi :)