Category: Large Executive 
Price Range: £49,975 to £80,260
Quality interior, low emissions, stylish looks.
Multitronic CVT's occasional lack of low-speed refinement, no long wheelbase option, poor residuals.
A fine low-CO2 limo, let down by savage depreciation.
Engineers have tweaked the Audi's A8 standard air suspension in an attempt to improve ride quality, an area where the brand has previously struggled with almost all of its models.
Shock absorbers have been revised with lower friction seals to reduce vibration and the driver has the choice of three damper settings, Comfort, Dynamic, or Automatic. Low-speed ride feels improved and speed bumps are taken with ease, but smaller, sharper imperfections still unsettle ride quality. As does motorway expansion bumps at speed.
As well as ride comfort, Audi has worked hard on improving refinement and, on the large part, succeeds. At cruising speeds, the engine is inaudible, with wind and road noise well suppressed. Under hard acceleration it's a different story: the 2.8-litre engine becomes quite vocal and a little thrashy over 4,000rpm.
Standard equipment is high across all A8s. Each model coming with xenon headlamps, DAB radio, satellite navigation, six-CD player and Bluetooth hands-free.
Disappointingly, the options list is equally long and our test car had almost £10,000 worth of options over the £49,165 Audi charges for the SE model.
Adaptive cruise control (£1,500) that uses radar technology to maintain a steady distance from the car ahead is worth considering, but it leaves a large gap and is slower in response than that found in the Jaguar, for example.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Audi A8
wrote on 05 05 2007