Audi R8 2 Year Full Ownership Update! Maintenance Overview & Reliability

What is up guys ?

So for Canadian Rider here today , I'm gonna be giving you a two year ownership update on my 2008 Audi R A .

So many of you may be watching this video trying to figure out if I ever do buy an Audi R eight or if you're even thinking about it .

What are the actual ownership costs of having a supercar in your garage ?

So I bought this car this 2008 model about two years ago now .

And this was my dream car when I found this in high school .

When it came out , the Iron Man movie came out .

If you've been a part of this channel , you've been a subscriber on this channel .

You've seen the entire journey of the car .

I went ahead and I bought this from a surgeon in Montreal .

He was the only owner had it for the entire lifetime of the car .

So I'm only the second owner of this car , put very little kilometers on it about 37,000 kilometers .

And I did a whole bunch of research before I went ahead and I bought the car .

Number one kind of research on what are those ownership costs as you guys mentioned or that's why I'm doing this video , but then on a whole bunch of other different stuff .

So if you haven't seen those videos , I'm going to go ahead and put the playlist above , but that's going to walk you through a really exciting journey that I've had in owning this R eight over the last two years .

So I highly recommend you check out those videos now .

It's been a full two years now .

And I actually did want to do this video because a lot of you have asked questions and said , you know , two years in has it , you know , costed you a lot more than you originally thought .

You know , what are some of those quirks and some of those things that you might not necessarily have known in a very or shorter ownership period .

So it's been two years and I'll kind of walk you guys through all of the different things about this car that I've experienced in two years .

I am happy to say it's all positive for the most part .

And I'm pleasantly surprised actually , when I did all the research on the car and I bought it , there are still some things that I knew that I might have had to spend some money on to fix and actually the car is held up really well .

In that time , I do want to go over a lot of the things in my ownership of the last two years to make sure that I'm helping you .

If you guys have any questions about the car , you can also leave them in the comment box down below , but I'll pretty much walk you through my entire experience with the car .

I guess we can first start off with the , the exterior .

So this is about , this is a 2008 .

So it's fairly old now , over a decade old , about 12 years old .

Now , when I bought the car , the exterior was in immaculate condition .

In terms of major things , there was no dents , there was no dings , there was no major damage to the car on the exterior and no rust obviously in that time though , you know , I had some minor paint chips .

The paint was a mess in terms of swirls and scratches on the paint , but we went ahead .

I did a full paint correction on the car and that's why it looks like this and it is immaculate because of that .

Um So I did a full paint correction on it .

I put a full three M paint protection pro film on the entire front end .

So full hood , full bumper , the lights , the mirrors , the A pillars , et cetera .

So the entire front end when it's protected , then finally , I topped the entire car off with ceramic coating .

So on the exterior in the two years , I had it , I actually did a lot of work to make sure that the exterior just looks beautiful and mint and it's kept in that condition , maybe nothing to say about the car and actually how it's handling , you know , just wear and tear since 37,000 kilometers since I bought it .

Now , I have 47,000 kilometers .

So to be clear , 10,000 kilometers over two years that's been driven more than the previous owner has done it .

And there hasn't been anything major that has changed .

This is probably due to the fact that , you know , I'm very obsessive and I'm crazy and I've kept this car in like in immaculate condition .

I've probably treated it better than anything I've ever treated anything in my life .

Uh because I love this thing in terms of the design and styling .

You know , I , I bought this car number one because I fell in love with the looks and it's a Timeless design and it's absolutely beautiful .

And two years later , obviously that doesn't change what I meant .

It was timeless .

It doesn't matter if I do this video .

10 years from now , we are all going to look at this car and say this is a beautiful car .

You ask people , people come up to me and they're like , is this like a 2018 2019 2020 car ?

I'm like , and I'm like , no , this is actually 2008 and they're just blown away and they're shocked .

They're like , this thing looks like it's from the future in 2020 .

So that's why I love this car so much and that's what I think it makes this car valuable with a whole bunch of other things .

I'll talk about value in a little bit later , but in the exterior it's holding up .

Well , there's no rust .

Um , obviously it's fully aluminum this car for the most part and it looks timeless and it is beautiful .

Exterior wise has been great .

Let's go about in the interior .

So the interior , you know , this is where you'll start seeing some of that age and the minor wear .

Now , generally the interior is in immaculate condition for its age 12 years old , 47,000 kilometers .

It's in great condition , but you do see some of that wear and the bolsters of the seats , um a little bit of the wear and the leather , but that's about it .

Everything else in the interior has been holding up extremely well .

Obviously , I've been taking care of it religiously , you know , cleaning the leather every year , putting leather conditioner on it , making sure I just clean the car when it's dirty .

That's something that's very important to actually keep a car in good condition is making sure that when it's dirty and it needs a cleaning that you are doing that .

So on the interior , it's actually been very good , nothing major to report on the interior in terms of change or degradation over the two years that I got it .

The only thing I would say , just make sure when you're buying the car and you inspect the interior , make sure everything works .

So that way it's going to continue to work in the future for you .

So we talked about the interior now , but how about mechanically ?

This is where , you know , this is where most of the concern is for people is they're buying a super car .

A 2008 Audi R eight , a German car after 12 years , I'd say for the most part , that's a bad idea .

If I'm thinking about , you know , maybe getting 46 M three or an Audi A four that are , you know , 10 , 12 years old , I'm concerned about a whole host of different things .

It's not necessarily true for all BMW and Audi models , you know , BMW and Audi fans don't hate me .

We know they've had some reliability issues with specific model generations in the past .

No problems here .

Major .

So again , if you've been following me on this car and the journey , you'll see that there are some quirks with this car that need to be addressed that I was fully aware of before I bought the car .

Some of those things are like the magnetic ride suspension that this car came with .

All of them go bad , all of them go bad and this one went bad just like as the other ones did , I replaced it with ABC racing coil over kit which honestly for street riding , I see no difference in performance , no difference in comfort .

It's been an amazing replacement bolt on compared to the magnet ride suspension .

And then now I know I don't have to replace it all the time .

So that was one , you know , fix that I had to do slash upgrade for that .

The other thing about this car is that you need to be aware of .

It hasn't happened to me yet .

Is the air conditioning units on these cars all seem to go prematurely , in my opinion , and then they can cost a lot of money .

Now .

Fortunately , well , unfortunately , the official Audi way to actually fix the air conditioning unit on the 2008 V eight version is a full engine removal , which as you can imagine will be extremely expensive .

So that was something I was really concerned with , but there is a way to actually remove the air conditioning unit without needing to take out the full engine .

So if I did get to that point , it would be about 3000 Canadian dollars to replace the air conditioning unit on this car .

Now , it hasn't happened yet .

And actually , that's kind of surprised me , I would have expected in the two years time that it would be replaced .

Now , the air conditioning unit was replaced about four years ago before I bought the car .

So it's been about six years and the AC unit hasn't been replaced , do I expect it to maybe go soon .

Potentially .

Right .

That's definitely some potential there , but it hasn't happened yet .

So I'm happy about that .

Brakes and rotors .

When I bought the car , they were in good shape .

They're still in good shape .

I'd say they're a bit low now .

So I'm going to be probably looking to go ahead and get brakes and rotors , but that's item .

So that's consumable .

I got new tires on the car as well .

And when I bought the car , they were bald and the tires are perfectly fine .

They're in great shape .

They're the Michelin pilot P S four tires .

If you haven't seen that video , I will link in the cart above as well .

Amazing tires .

But these are consumables again if I'm thinking about , you know , engine , anything major wrong with the engine .

No , the engine has been a beautiful engine and it's been reliable and it's been great because I've been maintaining it .

I'm doing oil changes every year , right .

With full synthetic oil .

I am also , I also did the valve cleaning .

So if you haven't seen that as well , these cars , the V eight engines because they're directly injected , they tend to build , build up carbon in the intake manifold in the valves .

So that will , you know , start to degrade performance , fuel economy horsepower , but also may cause misfires .

So I just recently did that , you know , I didn't have maintenance history .

Well , I do have full maintenance history on the car , but I never had any proof of maintenance for cleaning the valves .

So I wanted to be sure that it was actually clean .

So I went ahead and I did that with Bill from Garage .

Auto sports .

Thank you , Bill .

He's actually the guy that does all the maintenance on this car as much .

I'd love to wrench a lot of this stuff on the car because the car has the full maintenance history that was done through the dealership and everything stamped on the book , etcetera .

I'm continuing to do that and making sure the maintenance is done by a certified Audi technician to , to keep the records of this car .

Perfect .

So I do all my wrenching on my Lexus is 350 that's just sitting out there and my fiance's Lexus is 250 that's sitting right there .

So , in terms of that front on the engine , it's been reliable and solid .

This is the same engine that was on the Audi R S four and there was nothing major around that in terms of , you know , common engine issues besides the quirky maintenance that you have to do .

And the engine does burn a little bit of oil .

Nothing uncommon that I haven't seen .

I had actually , if I think about it , my 2011 5 liter Mustang burn some oil .

My BMW 2002 E 46 M three burns some oil .

My Mazda Yata burn some oil .

My Lexus ice 350 burns a little bit of oil .

So does my fiance's .

Lexus is 250 .

They burned a little bit of oil .

So I'm not really concerned about the oil burn .

It's actually a common issue .

It's not that big of a concern .

Just keep oil levels in check .

Now , the more major item which I haven't really talked about is the clutch replacement .

So that's something you can't really get away from right clutches wear out over time .

It's been 12 years on this clutch but only 47,000 kilometers .

I do not sense that I'll have to replace it soon .

But when I do , that's going to be an expensive job .

You need to take out the engine , you need to put in the clutch like that's going to be between 6 to $8000 potentially Canadian to go ahead and do that service on this car .

So the thing to know around maintenance on this car is that yes , it sounds like it's common maintenance items that you would typically find in any other car , be a German or Japanese .

But because this is a German supercar , it's mid engine , there's going to be those one off expenses that are much greater than if you had a , you know , basic car or my Lexus is 350 .

For example , if you're going ahead and looking to actually buy this car in the Aron if you put in the badge com system to check in the computer , it will actually give you a reading the clutch life for the electronic for the manual .

That's not possible .

Unfortunately , but you'll be able to get some understanding if you do some tests on the highway for the manual by putting it in a high gear , maybe fifth or sixth gear and putting it to the floor .

If you see the rpm raising and you're not speeding up , you're getting some clutch slips .

So just be aware of that .

But mechanically , overall , besides the quirky things I just talked about , it is actually fundamentally reliable , which is why I actually went ahead and purchased the car in the first place .

I was really concerned about that .

I didn't want to get hit with , you know , $10,000 repair .

After $10,000 repair .

The reality is I could not afford that and I wanted to make sure , you know , when those things that do happen occur , I knew about it .

I was prepared like when the clutch comes to this , I'm prepared for that .

But overall , you should be very confident in the V eight because it's a tried and true engine .

You should be confident in the most of the parts on this car because a lot of them came from Volkswagen .

A lot of them were rip and replace into this car , which makes it inherently more reliable because of mass production and testing .

Out there , the battery is about to be shot at this point .

You know , I've been trying to charge it on the trickle charger .

If I don't keep a charger on the trickle charger , it starts up sometimes funky and it doesn't start up properly all the way .

So I need to get the battery replaced .

The battery is seven years old , actually , it's eight years old now , which makes sense .

So these are small things , but to replace the battery , it's a little quirky .

You need to kind of take off the front end , which is what I did when I installed the BC racing coil overs anyway , but those are just small things .

Again that you have to be aware of otherwise , like there's not much that I've had to do that has cost me money that , you know , like that's uncommon that other cars that you're not necessarily doing with .

So again , I feel very confident when I tell anyone about this car , like the maintenance is actually not that big of an issue .

Insurance might be something else that you need to think about .

So when you're thinking about buying this car , you need to think about not only mechanically how you keep it in tip top shape , but how are you going to insure it because that's definitely a variable cost for you for me .

Unfortunately , the insurance has not been that bad at all .

So I'll just give you guys a range , you know , I've been quoted for this car between $130 to $180 Canadian .

Now , this is completely dependent on so many variables .

So you can't just say that your insurance is going to be like mine .

Every time I get in this car , I feel special .

Every time I take it out for a spin , it just all the pieces work for me .

Feel so special .

Driving this car , the engine makes you feel special .

The transmission , all these pieces that I've previously talked about that make you feel special in this car .

And that's what makes this car special .

That's what has kind of aided to the bottoming out of this depreciation curve .

This is Audi's first super car that came out .

This is a collection of amazing technology that has made this car so unique from the exterior styling and design from the cockpit on the inside , from the gated six speed manual transmission , which feels like you're holding a rifle and kind of going to war on the roads from the , you know , the all wheel drive where you're getting full traction right off the hop from the engine that you know , it doesn't have the most power in the world .

420 horsepower , about £320 feet of torque .

But you have to wind that engine out , you have to really wind it out .

You get up to 8500 R PM almost on this engine and you're really , really feeling the experience and all the different pieces of this car making the moment , special and unique .

The reality is like if you wanted a car with 506 100 plus horsepower , you know , you can probably find another car , go get a Mustang 5.0 , get a GT 350 or something like that , right .

Those are other options for you .

But if you value more than just horsepower , if you value more than just top line speed , if you value the entire experience , the entire package brings to you .

This is what this car does .

That's what's amazing about this car is like everything together makes it so special .

And the sound like when you , when you put it in a third gear and you know , you're ripping it down , you just hear all the air being sucked in from the side vents into the air and the engine is just peeking and you just hear all of the engine noise behind you and the air sucking to your sides and you're clanking through the transmission .

It's honestly a really impressive , unique experience .

And you know , we , we look at what Audi is doing right now and they're discontinuing the R eight for the future .

And you think about the history of this car , this is a car that actually set the design language for their next generation of Audi cars in that model generation .

Unlike the new R eight s where they've followed the design architecture of the cars that Audi's redesigned .

This R eight came and completely blew up that model .

It was leading the design heritage for the next generation of cars in their entire Audi lineup .

So there's a lot of history with this car .

There's a lot of beauty with this car .

Um Unfortunately , you guys saw , you know , we keep the beauty , we keep the stock heritage .

The only thing I don't have on this car is the stock O E M wheels and tires .

But actually I was debating on getting those or not and putting them on this car .

But I love these ad V one wheels that came with the car .

I did get them powder coated .

I did get them custom made for myself , which has this beautiful look to it and it matches the side blade that I have now so big .

Thanks to John from Union RM .

If you haven't seen that video , that's actually one of my most .

I love that video of all my videos the most because I go through with John and he shows us how to masterfully crap and powder coat these wheels and he did such an amazing job .

So John , every day I take out this car , I just wanna say thank you .

You've done such an amazing job with these wheels .

I take care of this car like a garage clean .

I don't drive it out in the winter , no , winter driving is done with it .

It's stored properly in the winter months .

You know , when I do take it out , I'm always making sure it's clean .

It's kept up , et cetera , et cetera .

It's not really doing anything crazy .

So that's a big caveat on this .

And , you know , probably a lot of people will take this to the track and that's fine .

As long as you do some , you know , preparation to it and you make sure you're taking , taking care of it properly .

It shouldn't really matter too much .

Like I actually do want to take this to the track and I think I'll be fine .

I'm not going to be detrimental to it .

You know , the tires might get a little worn , that's perfectly fine , tires are replaceable , they're consumable items .

But in terms of what I'm doing , that's kind of what I've been doing in the last two years with it .

I did drive a lot , I put 10,000 kilometers in the last two years on it .

And I think that's a lot to me .

It's a lot compared to the history of the car .

So I have been putting on those kilometers , but overall , I couldn't be happier with the car .

It's lived up to everything and it's still , I think the most important question in the two years , it still sparks that passion and that joy and that love and that feeling that I get from it since the first day I bought it .

So that's what's really important .

That's why you buy this car .

You buy that car for that feeling that you get .

And still two years later , I get that feeling every day .

And I think that is because of its timeless design , elegance and beauty .

You know , technology aside , it's been 12 years that's augmented very quickly .

I have a little Bluetooth adapter in the car .

It plugs in .

I have all my music .

I don't use the Built in GPS inside of the car .

Obviously , that looks super archaic .

My phones up there on a phone mount and that's it .

I have my Google Maps .

That's probably how people are doing it anyway .

So really , you're getting a car that's meant to be driven , it's quickly augmented with , you know , things you have in 2020 to make sure that you can use it and it's comfortable to use every day if you need to .

But the car has been amazing .

If you guys have any questions , please leave them in the comment box down below .

I'll be happy to answer any questions you guys have on this .

I feel like I've become kind of the expert on this generation car just in my ownership and just obsessive readings about it .

So feel free if you found this video helpful , give it a thumbs up , subscribe to the channel guys .

Lots of great videos to come on this car , motorcycles , traveling , car detailing , all of that stuff is in this channel .

And I want to say thank you guys for being subscribers .

Thank you guys for subscribing .

Thank you guys for being engaged .

I love doing this and I love sharing the passion with you on this stuff .

I really hope this video helped you guys , especially for those that are potentially thinking about looking at this car as an option in the future .

I know that's how I started .

My journey was by trying to get as much information as I could to make an informed buyer's choice or even an informed dream about if this is even attainable one day for myself .

I hope this video helped you .

Thank you guys so much and I will see you guys in the next video .