milellie111

2007 A8L with 85,000 miles.

The ride is much harsher when going over bumps and expansion joints. Ride setting on automatic and comfort. Feel the jarring from the rear of the vehicle as if not being dampened. Harshness transfers into the cabin and is noisier as well. Could it be the tires? Factory Pirrelli P6 Four seasons but they have less than 50% tread. At first I thought it was low tire pressure so I added air to the recommended 38psi front 35psi rear. No change.

Or, could this be suspension issue? Audi replaced my lower control arms about 20,000 miles ago. What other components could be causing this?

Thanks

MP4.2+6.0

Had those all seasons on a set of wheels I got for my 2000 A6Q. Had lots of tread yet felt like they were out to lunch. Finally dumped them for fresh tires, and sure enough much improved. Later found lots of commentary from others to same effect.

milellie111

Thanks. What tires did you switch too or would you recommend? I live in the northeast Washington, DC area.

MP4.2+6.0

If you want one tire that can handle occasional modest snow in a transition area like DC, many folks seem to like the Continental Extreme Contact DWS. Like this: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....omCompare1=yes

Or, read the TireRack reviews and find one that best suits your needs and price point with decent reviews.

FWIW, when I changed out my Pirelli poor ride and too much noise tires on my prior A6Q (where I ran into it), the replacements were actually Pirelli's too. P Zero Nero A/S's. They now have a better A/S tread pattern than when I got them, though they are not really a good tread for much snow, where the DWS is better. That aside, the P Zero Nero was a much smoother quieter tire with a decent road feel. I view it as a step up tire from the P6 A/S.

pfishwacker

For what it's worth, my A8L has periodic suspension memory lapses - it just decides to not work - with same symptoms. No pattern to the problem, happens in hot or cold weather. When working properly, my car has a distinct cycling motor sound when the suspension system is re-leveling in the garage after being turned off. When on strike, no such sound. So far it has not been worth tearing apart to diagnose - there are no codes being thrown. If yours worked OK on the Pirelli tires before, absent any recent catastrophic wear (flat spots, balance, etc) I would suspect the controller. Is you problem constant or intermittent?

MP4.2+6.0

"Controller"? That's a new one for me.

Just using basic diagnostics and general system known issues, sounds to me more like you have bit of a leak, your compressor is timing out after it gets overheated (the "lapse"), and you may be on your way to burning it out to the tune of $600+ even via Euro Ebay.

You might want to search/read up on the air suspension posts more. There are a ton of them, including many recent. Mine--which works great and adjusts at will--doesn't do any corrections in the garage either unless I change the ride height. As in, logically no air out = no air in if car level and load approx. equal.

mishar

+1

haggisuk

For the OP, diagnosing something you perceive to be harshness is extremely difficult, it maybe the Tyres, suspension, just a bad road, or loads of other variables.

I would ask that you Scan the car with VCDS to see if there are any faults with the suspension.

May I recommend that you have a read of this and you can see just how involved the suspension is on these cars and if you pay attention to the end of the manual there is mention of running Final control diagnosis, you need VCDS to do this but it's an invaluable test to run and see the health of the whole suspension system as far as shocks, sensors, compressor etc are concerned.

Only after the above has been proven good can you sensibly go looking at other areas of fault finding.

As for your car phishwacker if you hear your compressor kicking in when the car is parked in the garage, like has been said already it sounds like you have a leak and an imminent failure of the compressor if its not rectified.

The only thing my car does when parked up is settle down by releasing air from the struts once I get out and lock the car.

Actually thinking about it now, is it possible your talking about the parking brake motor calibrating itself, if it is you will be able to tell because it will be coming from the rear wheels not the front left of the car.