[s-cars] Another Noobie! (Long & Possibly Boring!)

[Fred Munro]

Years ago I did an autopsy on a cheaper-but-failed-rapidly non-OEM upper
link. The Heim joints on the OEM upper links have a Teflon sleeve between
the ball and the socket. The non-OEM Heim joints are metal-on-metal. As with
a lot of replacement parts, they look the same but there is a reason they
are cheaper. The same goes for the lower control arms. TRW has worked well
for me. Meyle lasted about one year.

Fred Munro
'97 S6

-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
[mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of Peter Schulz
Sent: September 29, 2010 7:05 PM
To: Tom Heitzman; <s-car-list at audifans.com> list
Subject: Re: [s-cars] Another Noobie! (Long & Possibly Boring!)

I installed OCAP rear upper links (tie rods) on my 200Q20v to save some
money over the cost of the oem lemfoerder ones.
They thanked me by starting to squeak shortly after install until I sold the
Avant.
They also developed surface rust rather quickly.

Rank order for lower control arms for me is

Audi OEM
TRW/Moog
Lemfoerder
Karlyn (Taiwan)
OCAP
Meyle
FEQ. 
blah blah.

The money that you save now by buying an inexpensive part will be more than
offset by the cost of labor and part replacement when the cheap part fails
prematurely.



On Sep 29, 2010, at 3:34 PM, Tom Heitzman wrote:

> Hello,
> 	I've been following this list for over a year and, in fact, bought
> my 1st Audi, a '98 A4 V6 Avant 5MT (141 K now 156 K) through the list from
a
> list member's(Rich Assarabowski) son at the beginning of the year. It was
> well cared for but due for Control Arms & Timing Belt/Water pump service.
I
> liked it so much I found a '99 A6 Avant w/39Kmi in Palm Beach, FL for my
> wife. I did the Timing Belt/Water Pump on that as well due to age.
> It's now ready for control arms at 51K mi. which leads to my 1st question.
> Has anybody had any experience with OCAP (Italy) control arms? My mechanic
> who works for a VW dealer and does a lot of Passat's
> With same components said the Meyle set I sourced for him seemed to be
fine.
> Another friend who got me into this whole Audi thing (has a Brumos Porsche
> prepared 200 20v and 2 matching Urs4's) said he's been very happy with
> Blauparts for his cars. (he's got two VW TDI's as well!) I went to
Blauparts
> website and they're no longer handling Meyle control arms but raving about
> Ocap. With the exception of Lemforder (I haven't seen any prices for
> complete set's) Febi/Bilstein, Meyle and Ocap are all close enough in
price
> that I'd just go with whatever most people consider best.
> 
> 	Any opinions



Peter Schulz
36 Westford St
Chelmsford MA 01824 USA
pcschulz at comcast.net



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