[Biturbos4] new guy on the list

[Grant Lenahan]

A pry bar is useful. As are ears. I always get a pro to put it on a 
lift, since i cannot get enough torque or freeplay with it on the 
ground. Until they are REALLY toast.

I have found that the initial culprits are the tie rod ends and the 
upper control links.

I'd be interested if others' experience correlates, since Audi of 
course, claims to have no pattern failures. Ever. of anything.

Grant
On May 3, 2007, at 7:55 PM, Steve Munk wrote:

> Thanks for the comments everyone. I found this discussion very
> helpful. If you go the piece-by-piece route, how hard is it to figure
> out specifically which front suspension links need replacing?
>
> Steve
> --
> Steve Munk                           http://people.arsc.edu/~munk/S4
> HPC Systems Analyst                  '01 Audi S4 biturbo, silver 
> 6-speed
> Arctic Region Supercomputing Center  '01 Audi A6 2.7T, gold 6-speed
> University of Alaska Fairbanks       mailto:fxstm at uaf.edu
>
>
> On Apr 26, 2007, at 7:45 PM4/26/07, Grant Lenahan wrote:
>> This is always a trade off. In the old days (B2, B3) cars, all the
>> bushings were rubber press-ins and relatively cheap.  On those
>> cars, I would, somewhere in the 80-100k range, go through and
>> replace "every rubber bit I could find". This included the strut
>> top bearings, which, on those cars, were good for, oh, 2 miles
>> (actually about 50k).
>>
>> On my S4 (which I had from new --> 80k) I had 1 tie rod end and 1
>> control arm go.  Both were done ~65-70k.  The others showed no
>> signs of imminent failure, so I did not do them.  I cant say when
>> they DID go, since I did not have the car long enough to find out.
>>
>> in general, I find the newer cars to have suspension components
>> that last longer than the older ones, but the parts are more
>> numerous and costly.  Pick your poison.
>>
>> Good luck,
>>
>> Grant
>>
>> Mark R wrote:
>>> I agree with Grant.  If the money is super tight, can just replace
>>> 1 or 2 links.
>>> However: Alignment is necessary if you replace one or all links.
>>> And from recollection, separately the links would total around
>>> $800. as opposed to $500. for the kit.
>>>  No question Grant is correct- the wear isn't even.
>>>  Mark Rosenkrantz
>>>  On 4/26/07, *Grant Lenahan* <glenahan at vfemail.net
>>> <mailto:glenahan at vfemail.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     My finding is that the parts dont wear out as a set, and you
>>> should at
>>>     least trade off just repalcing the links, tie rod ends, etc as
>>>     they wear
>>>     out, rather than doing a mass replacement.
>>>
>>>     There are arguments either way.
>>>
>>>     Grant
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