pocketchange

Is it possible to R/R the Ball Joint too or does it take a special tool to remove it? pc

Ps. silverd2.. Thank You for these PN's, no surprise as to prices..

Prospeeder

Myle HD suspension and steering stuff is far from "junk" they Are very well built for the money. yet to have any of the HD series stuff fail on customer cars. They may be made in china, but Germans run the factories and do the Quality control.

silverd2

Not to my knowledge...have never seen replacement parts (not listed in ETKA or service manuals) or a procedure.

snagitseven

You two need to cool your jets and discontinue the argumentative personal attacks and name calling. Which, by the way, are not permitted in the forums no matter who started it. Either take it offline or cease or this thread will be closed as the first remedy.

BrianC72gt

First, I tried Meyle and got about 3 years out of them. Not bad if your labor is free. Then I tried a different brand, Febi Bilstein. After about a year in service, the ball joint cup of my right lower straight arm split in half at the casting seam and dropped that corner on to the ground. Thankfully, this happened while approaching a stop sign at about 20mph. There was no warning, no bump in the road, and no prior symptoms, just Bam. It also resulted in a bent spindle and pulled the cv joint out of its socket. It could have been far far worse. It was the one and only time I had it towed to a shop and had them install Meyle arms again because I knew I'd get a couple of years out of them and wasn't sure I'd keep the car. Fast forward another 3 years, and it was driving like a broken shopping cart again.. This time I pried open the wallet and bought 4 Lemfoerder lower arms, TRW inner and Lemfoerder outer tie rod ends. Still waiting to finish the 034 Upper Arms. Had to trim a 1/4" off the long arms as they were too long for my mildly lowered Bilstein/Eibach strut combo, and were pushing me into positive camber (top of wheel tilted out..no bueno). At this point I'd only use OEM brand arms, especially if you are paying someone else to do the work. If money is that tight, I'd strongly suggest that you use oem at least for the lower straight arm the shock mounts to. That one is mission critical, and no fun at all when it breaks.

Part of the reason these cars are cheap to buy now is sellers know they can be expensive to maintain. You can save $ doing the work yourself, but substandard critical parts can get you killed. Trick is, how can you tell which bargain parts are safe/reasonably durable, and which ones aren't?

silverd2

Thanks for that Brian...but just 3 yrs!? To me, that would be "bad" and I'd be pissed, unless you're doing about 35K miles a year.

That's the kind of real world testing that would permanently put me off a brand name, no matter what desperate empty claims they make about their "improved" products. I don't think you'd buy a set of Febi Bilstein "HD" arms at this point.

Doctor removes and tosses your good kidney, leaving the bad...2 yrs later (if you lived) you return to have more work done by the same doctor, BECAUSE he went to the trouble of having "left" and "right" tattooed to the backs of his hands...He's an "improved" doctor now...no worries

audinutt

I stand by my words, meyle parts are JUNK!

BrianC72gt

Well....if the Febi Bilstein arm failed at speed, it could've been a lifetime part. So that's a good deal, right? Ouch.

The Meyle stuff isn't the best, but it isn't the worst out there either. My 3 years the first time was mostly driving around NYC...not huge mileage, but a pretty tough environment...winters, potholes that could swallow a bus. I was able to limp along a little further on the second set when I moved to NorCal. The roads are much better, but the mileage is higher. If anything, this resulted in a slower progression of the deterioration. We're at a point now where the OEM mfr's are free to sell outside the dealer network (when model is 10 + years old, I think), so now all in you are at about $1,000 for direct from mfr OEM vs. $500 for Meyle...give or take. Not cheap, but not 4x as much like it used to be.

BTW, I spoke with a tech recently at a local get together in the Sacramento area who has pressed in new bushings on OEM arms. And, No, you can't replace the ball joint end without specialty equipment that even the dealer doesn't have.

JoePGT5S

How does one know if a manufacturer is "truly" OEM? I find many after market companies claim to be OEM (or better than?).

Is there a list of companies out there that can be trusted to be true Audi OEM?

I'm enjoying the discussion in this thread - worries me to the point where I feel going to the Audi dealership for parts is the only safe choice for suspension parts.

audinutt

OE is different than OEM.
OE is original equipment, TRW and Lemforder fall in this catagory from what I have gathered.
In fact on the TRW arms you can plainly see where the Audi logo has been ground off.
The same can be seen on the lemforder arms.

-Richard