Buying a used Audi S8 for $9,500 sounds reckless enough on its own.
Buying one after a dealership already declared the engine dead sounds even worse.
That was the gamble Rich Rebuilds decided to take when he bought a once-$160,000 Audi flagship sedan that had effectively been written off. On paper, this thing should have been a monster, with a twin-turbo V8, hybrid assistance, all-wheel drive, and enough luxury tech to embarrass half the market.
Instead, it came with a dead battery, missing wheels, oil everywhere, and a dealership diagnosis that basically said the car was finished.
The Dealer Said The Engine Was Toast
According to Rich, the previous owner had taken the Audi to a dealership after it developed serious problems.
The verdict was brutal.
The dealer reportedly said the engine needed to be replaced, which, on a modern Audi S8, is the kind of sentence that usually kills a car’s value instantly. Once repair costs get high enough, even a six-figure luxury sedan can suddenly become almost worthless.
That’s how Rich ended up buying this one for just $9,500.
The Audi Looked Like A Disaster
At first glance, the situation didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
The battery was dead. The car threw a mountain of warning lights once power was restored. Oil appeared to be leaking from multiple areas, and the underbody looked soaked. On top of that, the S8 had already been modified, which made the whole situation even messier.
That matters because tuned German cars often scare dealerships away from spending too much time on diagnostics.
Once technicians see aftermarket parts, some reportedly decide the car is more trouble than it’s worth.
Then The Story Started Changing
Despite all the warnings, Rich kept digging.
He charged the battery, pulled codes, inspected the oil, checked the spark plugs, and scoped the cylinders. That’s when the supposed disaster started looking a lot less catastrophic than expected.
The oil didn’t show obvious metal contamination.
The spark plugs looked surprisingly normal.
Most importantly, the engine turned over by hand.
That was the big moment.
The Engine May Not Be Blown After All
If the engine had truly seized or suffered major internal destruction, turning it by hand should have been difficult or impossible.
Instead, Rich found the opposite.
The motor rotated, the cylinders didn’t immediately show obvious carnage, and the plugs didn’t suggest the kind of catastrophic failure you’d expect from a completely ruined engine. That doesn’t mean the Audi is healthy, but it does mean the dealer may have jumped to the worst possible conclusion.
In other words, the car may not need an engine at all.
Why The Dealer May Have Given Up
Rich also pointed to something that makes this story more believable than it first sounds.
According to the discussion in the video, some dealerships simply don’t want to spend hours diagnosing heavily modified cars. If a tuned vehicle arrives with a dead battery, endless fault codes, oil leaks, and a no-start condition, it can be easier to write it off than to chase every possible cause.
That appears to be what may have happened here.
The S8 still has problems, and probably expensive ones.
However, a bad battery, software chaos, electrical faults, and a rough-running modified engine can look a lot like total failure if nobody wants to go further.
It Might Actually Be A Bargain
This Audi is still far from fixed.
There are still no answers yet on what exactly is preventing it from starting, and the oil leak situation clearly isn’t good. That said, the biggest fear, a completely destroyed engine, now looks far less certain than the dealership made it sound.
That certainly changes things.
If Rich can solve the no-start issue without replacing the entire powertrain, this $9,500 Audi S8 could turn into an absurd bargain.
And for once, buying a terrifying used German luxury car might actually pay off.