MrKid

When I bought my Allroad, I was told it had a bad drivers front wheel bearing. From what I hear, it sounds more like a CV joint. It's not a clicking noise you normally here from a bad cv, but more of a crunching/whirring noise. It gets worse when going from level 2 to 3. This makes me believe it's a cv, because of the change in angle. I was thinking of just changing both, but if I could save a few bucks...

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

G0to60

Does it get worse or better when you make a turn? That would help nail it down to a CV. You can also take a look under there and see if you have any torn boots.

MrKid

It gets slightly worse turning both directions. One of the boots has grease around the entire circumference of one of the ribs. I can't see a tear, and the rest of the boot is clean.

G0to60

I would be more inclined to say that one of the CV joints is going bad more than a wheel bearing. Since that boot is torn I would replace that axle first and see if things get better. You'll need to address that CV anyway so might as well do it first.

MrKid

I just ordered both...lol. "While I'm in there". You know how it goes...

MrKid

So I replaced the axle and wheel bearing yesterday. Both the inner and outer boots were leaking, and the bearing had a ton of slop in it. Also did pads and rotors. The front, lower, rear position control arm seemed to have a lot of play in it. I was able to move it forward and backward about 3 inches each way. I guess that's next...

G0to60

I know it's a lot of money but you should probably look into replacing all eight front control arms. If one is bad then most likely several others are bad or close to going bad. Remember that the lower control arms on the front are unique to the allroad so you can't use the regular A6 control arms. For this reason they are rather expensive.

MrKid

Yeah, the car rides and handles great right now, so i'll save up for the entire kit. I've seen the single arm go from $80-240. I've seen kits with all 8 arms and hardware as low as $400.

G0to60

Be wary of the cheaper kits as the bushings can wear out pretty quickly. If you can try to go with the OEM lowers. There are many different options for the uppers as they are the same as other A6 models.

MrKid

Not to sound cheap, but this car will see less than 1k miles a year. Obviously, I will buy from a reputable company, but no way I can swing OEM for this.
I want to switch over to adjustable uppers, because the shop could not get my camber 100%.