A8 opinions

[Lyle]

There's a useful forum of D2 A8 owners at
http://www.audiworld.com/forum/a8.html
and a good technical web page at http://www.audipages.com

It's a great highway cruiser, fast and smooth with remarkably good handling
for its size.  I think the most common problems are:
1.  The heated steering wheels always broke within a year
2.  The headrest-lift linkage disconnects itself inside the seat
3.  The 97-98 auto transmission is failure-prone.  The 99 tranny is better,
and I think the problems were mostly sorted by 2000.  
4.  Various oil seals are only good for about four years.  

Without knowing the UK market, I suspect that UKP6000 will have you in the
97s, no?  So bear in mind that transmission repairs are ExPeNSiVE, and the
timing belt service at 160K km requires a whole bunch of expensive parts and
some tools you probably don't have (though I think that's true of all the
models you're looking at, except the TB service is more frequent on the 4
and 6 cyl engines).