What to do with a loved but aged D2 A8?
 

Our A8 is going in for its MOT soon, and there's a chance it won't make it through - well, I say that as if it's a new thing, but it's failed MOTs in the past in a remediable way. This time it may fail in an irremediable way.

Either way, I am beginning to wonder whether it's time to get the old girl go. We've had her since she was 6m old; she's now 13 years old. The mileage is low 70s, but I have to admit, to use a description from another thread, the outside is tatty. I should never have married Stevie Wonder.

The bumpers could do with a respray; quite a few panels have small stone dings; there's a small area of lifted lacquer on the bonnet around a chip; there are scratches on the bonnet and doors; a few bits of minor trim inside have vanished over the years; the onboard ancient Nokia phone is toast ... you get the picture. She's been used as the family bus a bit too much.

The question is, pass or fail the MOT, if I wanted to move her on, what would be the best way to go about it? PX, and forget about it? Put her up for sale (MOT pass required, obv) and put up with the chancers?

It's a tough one. Our kids have literally grown up in that car. If she goes, she'll be missed.

That's a low mileage for a car of that age, if you cherish it it's probably worth "revitalising".
The question we all ask is - gearbox status/services?

Put it through the MOT and see what happens, personally, I'd run it until the gearbox blew at least. If it does fail it's MOT, get a trade in price and then give me a shout and hopefully I'll better it and get it back on the road. +++

What model/spec/year is it by the way?

As for being the family runabout, our 2nd car (the antique Ford Focus) was a total shed after being the car our 3 kids used to learn to drive on and run around in for many years at Uni and after.
But it kept going and underneath was solid, a good spec and met our needs after they all moved out, so I've very much "bought it back to life" in recent times as we don't need anything newer or better.

And of course A8parts can supply all those missing/degraded parts. +++

Aug 99 registered, but 2000 MY, so facelifted. Also has had RNS-E fitted for some time now, and recently had S8 mirrors added after a moped rider removed one. GPS aerial fixed; belts changed at the last service. Serviced annually by our local indy for many years, irrespective of mileage. Gearbox hasn't been touched though; I almost feel like it would be tempting fate to play around it.

Nicely spec'd - it was a dealer principal's car for 6m before we bought it.

These D2 boxes tend to only start to play up after 100k, so you've got a while yet (probably...). It sounds like a good, well maintained example, and hopefully getting through this years MOT won't be too difficult/expensive. If you do decide to part with it, I'm sure someone on here will be interested in giving it a good home ;)

If it passes the MOT treat it to a gearbox oil and filter change - less than £200 and it'll give some confidence it'll keep on going well past 100k miles. I had mine changed at around 50k miles and it made a massive difference.

If you leave it to 100k miles you might as well not bother

Put it through an MOT and take it from there, I'd be speaking to Amar

Well bugger me! It passed!

Mrs66 has vetoed any immediate talk of sale. She's very resistant to change. Perhaps some refurb is now in order ...

Mine has just short of 190K miles now, and still the untouched original box. I'll not be doing anything to my gearbox anytime soon, after all its not been touched for 12 years. The paint on mine has also seen better days, and its had repair work and replacement panels along the way.

Greg66, another 12 months happy motoring for you in the 8 then. I've put mine through 2 MOTs now and its gone straight through both times.