aaronazevedo

I thought I'd share my recent alignment experience with the crew here in an effort to help folks solve a problem much faster than I did.

Background - I bought our 2000 A6 4.2 4 years ago with complete records. The car had 112k on the clock. I swapped all the fluids and filters, replaced brakes and rotors and put tires on it. The car has been great, so great that at 137k I figure its worth replacing the 22 year old shocks. It took along time to source the correct Bilstein B8 shocks for the sport suspension A6 Quattro, but found them for a deal and then found an independent shop to do each corner for $100. So $450 for shocks and $400 for labor and I thought I was in and done. Quotes from 5 other shops ranged from $1500 - $2300 for shocks and installation - none would source a Bilstein shock for me.

On dry roads, the car handled much better than before. The previous owner also put front and rear Hotchkis sway bars on the car. However, on wet roads, the car was a train wreck. It really drove like I was on an ice rink. The back end felt like it was all over the road. I found that during the shock installation, the rear control arms were pivoted downward and damaged the control arm bushings. I found some urethane bushings on line another indy shop to install them. However the shop was too busy to do the alignment. No worries, I said. I'll pop into the local Les Schwab and get an alignment. No. The techs and Les Schwab had no idea what do do with my car. They printed out all the information about removing the subframe and explained to my why they could not do it. OMG! I had never heard of this through all the cars we've owned, but ended up taking to to a local tire shop that had a better alignment set-up. They committed to get it done and would have to bill me hourly. OK. Let's go.

40 minutes later, the tech came out and said it was done. Les Schwab had entered the car in wrong and didn't know enough to see their mistake. The local alignment shop guy was an old German car guy and knew where to get the suspension code off the build sticker in the trunk. Everything fixed in no time for cheap money.

The A6 now handles better than ever. I get full use out of the Hotchkiss set up and the Bilstein B8 shocks really shine.

My lessons are:

- Chain stores suck
- Find a local Indi shop that you can trust to work on your special car

Happy Motoring!!

Harleyguy

Most of the knowledgeable members on here have reiterated your sentiments on a constant and continual basis. Indies are generally more interested in doing the work than the dealers as the dealers want you to buy/ lease a new ride every three or four years; Audi's have unique and unusual maintenance and repair procedures that the average repair shop has no clue about; Persistence pays off if you own one of these beasts.