2007 Audi S8 - Long-Term Road Test - Car and Driver (blog)

If you accept the idea that cars can suffer a midlife crisis, then we think you’ll agree that the one experienced by our long-term Audi S8 test car was pretty severe. Here’s the story: With 23,288 miles on the odo, the S8 found itself closely involved in a noisy pas de deux with an elderly minivan, a dance from which neither vehicle emerged in running order. We must mark this down to a judgment error on the part of our pilot, who darted for a left-turn opening that was suddenly occupied by the minivan, which had been screened by a string of large SUVs. Though our driver lamely suggested that the minivan was moving quite briskly, the investigating officer pointed out that whatever its speed, the minivan had right of way, and he issued a citation for failure to yield. The Audi’s airbags did not deploy, and it managed to limp into our parking lot under its own power, but its left-front corner was seriously wrinkled, and coolant was oozing onto the pavement. Putting our S8 back together again took five months (126 hours of labor, ranging from $45 an hour to $100 an hour), involved pulling the engine twice, and cost $29,969 [ see sidebar ]. It makes you wanna lie down. Prior to these tribulations, one of our drivers tossed a water bottle onto the front passenger seat with the lid not quite tight. The bottle quietly drained itself onto the seat, the water found its way into the seat’s electrical system (power adjustability, seat heater), and the seat’s systems shorted out. And in another unfortunate episode, the Audi ran over a muffler someone had dropped. Source: www.caranddriver.com