Avdwaal1

2006 Audi A8, 146k miles. I have Excessive inside front tire wear. I have done an alignment after installing the tires about 15k miles ago and one 2 weeks ago, on both alignment was good. I have since learned one can only set the relative camber between the front wheels but not on the wheels separately.

What is causing the tire wear? Possible clues: i have replaced the upper front control arm bushings about 20k miles ago. The bushings were after market from partsgeek, i know now that was probably a mistake.

Thanks,
Arthur

mishar

Check those bushings again. This time replace them with OEM ones.

MP4.2+6.0

Yep, front upper control arm bushings. Inner front tire wear is the usual practical give away symptom. At rest it may align fine, but probably particularly on braking where forces can be highest and tire wear most pronounced, things are shifting momentarily. I'm afraid yet again why aftermarket stuff for key suspension parts (crap said bluntly) is cheap in more ways than one. Made the same mistake on my A6 with Meyle junk, another pretend Euro brand.

2001 S8

Agree with mishar and MP4.2=6.0 on the control arms being the possible cause. However have you checked your strut mounts? My car has 114,xxx on the clock and the strut mounts need to be replaced. Driver's side is pretty much gone. While my mechanic is there it only makes sense to replace the struts and strut bellows, as well.

Just a thought but it's probably the obvious…control arms.

Good luck.

MP4.2+6.0

There is no strut mount on a D3 is you mean any of the typical rubber buffer stuff above a strut, or sometimes the Lazy Susan like bearing plate sort of stuff. D3 is strut directly bolted to upper suspension casting, which in turn is hard bolted to the body. No rubber or other buffering ain any of that. Only other bushing is where the strut through bolts to the front lower arm.

Here's a picture of the top of the strut and its mount from my strut replace. And notice right in there are those upper control arm bushings. Piece of cake BTW to do control arms if needed at same time as a strut R&R. (If wondering BTW, thing at apparent top of strut in the picture is the protective dust boot for the wire connector, not any kind of bushing.)

2001 S8

After I posted, I wondered if D3's had strut mounts, since it's all air suspension. D2 = Analog where as D3 = Digital. But I still love my analog S8.

Thanks for the context MP4.2+6.0.

TSHong

Agree with the previous post about a loos suspension component. Is the inside wear even or a little choppy? This could further help in diagnosing the issue.