Has anyone noticed…?
 

Digging up this old post.

Amar, I have noticed an ever dwindling supplies of good D2's as well and not just the S8.

Looking at howmanyleft.co.uk the stats speak for themselves. There were 441 taxed S8 D2's on the road at the end of Q3 2012, the number is steadily dropping.
http://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle...2_quattro_auto

The number of D2 3.7 QS models is even less at just 152 at the end of the same quarter.
http://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle...tro_sport_auto
That makes 50 less on the road since I bought the one I now have.

68 4.2 quattro sports registered..........

Seems a bit low to me
http://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle...tro_sport_auto

The data is provided by the DVLA,

if you search for just A8 4.2 you get quiet a lot of variants come up. Maybe some of the ordinary 4.2's are in fact Quattro Sports.

http://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=✓&q=audi+a8+4.2

....Or, if you look at it the other way, there are still more than 500 S8's in one piece out a total of only 670 registered - i.e nearly 80% of the total volume, if I read these numbers right, which isn't bad, 10 years after production stopped. However, there were some different interpretations of these numbers on this forum last time "How Many Left" was discussed, which was a while ago.

Out of curiosity, and as a comparison, I had a look at the equivalent data on this site for the Fiat Coupe, my other weekend car. For that vehicle, there are less than 1900 taxed or SORN'ed cars remaining out of a total of 3600 Fiat Coupe 20v turbos, and these numbers are declining at a faster rate than the S8 (i.e there are just over 50% left). I think this is partly because it's an older model (production from 1996 to 2000), and partly because they are less well made/well cared for (cough!...).

Either way, what I've found, as a consequence of these factors with the Fiat, is that parts for the Coupe are now becoming increasingly hard to come by over the last year - and that's from production/registration with seven times higher volume. I don't think it has reached that stage yet for the S8/D2, but may do in the next year or two. Hopefully it'll be longer than that :).

I suspect the larger volumes of '8s generally in Continental Europe, plus Audi's usual trait of reusing parts across models, plus the aftermarket support for Audi parts in general should see parts supply remain good for many years to come - there will be increased difficulty in getting hold of model specific bits of trim as parts dwindle to zero or are sold off as uneconomic to store. To a degree it's already happened - I can't buy replacement bits of trim in purple for my interior, even if I wanted to!

If anyone's looking for a decent S8 mine is still available ;)

Adrian