skiracer1313

Car is an '02 S8 w/ 85k mi, stock suspension, 19" summer wheels, 18" winter wheels. Front tires showing excessive wear on both insides (lots of tread left, but inside worn to the cords - must be replaced prematurely). Took it in for an alignment and I've got too much negative camber on both wheels.

Tech said there's no camber adjustment on the D2 and asked if I had lowered the suspension. It's stock OEM and he suspects the springs have dropped and suggested replacing both springs & shocks. I've driven lots of Audi's but never had a suspension wear out before 100k mi.

Does this sound reasonable? Did I coincidentally do front end damage, equally on both sides? Is it a control arm issue? Any BTDT? Thanks in advance for any advice.

mpollan

and it turned out that the bushings were shot. If memory serves correctly the control arms were even cracked. WRT no camber adjustment...Huh? No caster yeah but I have never heard of no camber adjustment. Ley us know what comes of it.

Mark

skiracer1313

and cannot be adjusted. I was also surprised there was no adjustment to spec. I consider my alignment guy to be competent.

Interestlingly, the initial camber reading on the Left side was w/in spec, but after the Toe was adjusted properly the camber went out of spec. I hope it's just the bushings!

OOOOya

Not to imply that your camber is not out, but here's my story...

Last month I took the S6 in for an alignment after discovering tire wear you describe. The alignment guy at the very reputable tire shop in Boulder told me everything was within spec., he changed nothing and had no answer as to why I corded the inside of a tire that was otherwise perfectly good.

I stewed on that a while, looked up the specs in the Bentley, and then started measuring things out in my garage. Long story short, the front end was toe-in 2x the spec. Combine that with the OEM -1.x° camber and the inside of the tires get eaten up. Knock wood, the new fronts show no sign of wear yet.

<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/74843/img_5542.jpg">

skiracer

I would go ahead and replace all of the control arms and tie rod ends at once- even though a tech will say it is only one or two of the arms, it won't be long before the others go too.

skiracer1313

Which shop in Boulder did you use? I wonder if there might be a calibration issue?

DutchDoofus

You have an S8. It's a quattro based car so it has no straight-single-axle at the rear.
It has only toe-in/out adjustment on the front and camber + toe adjustment at the rear axle. That is it. No other things can be adjusted.

The tech should start and finish adjusting the rear first. It's camber can be adjusted and than modify the toe, then modify the camber again etc. etc.
Why? well when the camber get's adjusted on the 8 the toe get's modified automatically because they are interconnected.
You must "work them towards each other" to get it completely right. It can be tricky.

After the rear is totally as it should be, one can start at the front. The only thing that can be adjusted here is toe.
The rear axle steers the car. With the front axle you change the direction of the car. Sounds wierd but it's true. The rear is the reference for the front and not the other way around.

The S8 has the same control-arms as the A8 but lies 19mm lower. Therefore, the camber is always more negative than that of an A8.
(At the rear it's practically the same for both models by the way.)

A more negative camber on the D2 "8" can only be compensated through giving it even more toe-in. That's all the tech needs to do.

If the S8 is completely standard AND the right program is choosen in the alignment-computer, all you need to do on an S8 is follow the screen and be very precise.

If an A8 or S8 get lowered to more than 19mm with, for example, an Eibach Pro-kit (25mm) than the computer will ALWAYS say the camber on the front is out of specs and thats indeed true.
To compensate for the even greater negative camber now, choose the 99-03 S8 quattro and give it a bit more toe-in than specified but keep it within the the "green zone".

Problems with differences in caster and camber (one side more negative that the other on the same axle) can only be resolved by shifting the entire subframe around until they are the same. This happens a lot with D2 A8's getting lowered.

Experienced alignment techs who know the Audi quattro system will no how much extra toe-in needs to be given.

My car is an 01 A8 lowered 25mm (Eibach) and has been aligned by someone who is trained for Audi quattro and has a lot of field-experience with lowered cars in general. My car drives perfectly and shows normal wear on all tires.

The "just another alignment tech on the shop at the corner" will screw up you car. Go to a specialist !!
It's much more than just getting the numbers in the green. It's what you do within the "green range" that counts. It's really not that simple to align a quattro car.


In Holland for example there are only four (out of a few hundred) shops that understand an Audi quattro and consistantly do a good job on them...

DutchDoofus

A tech suggesting replacing springs+shocks is incompetent. The shocks do nothing for the ride height

DutchDoofus

@85k miles it's unlikely to be a control-arm issue. Tie-rods can be checked for wear.

diogeniS8

and on my S4 at 60k miles.... Upper control arms are going faster than the tires and the brakes from what I understand.