Basenco

Went to the Audi stealership this morning so they could further diagnose my faulty air strut and they definitely confirmed that it is bad. They even told me not to drive the car, which I haven't been doing. Now, the service advisor gave me 2 options for replacement. He recommended that I change both struts at the same time and he told me that they use Arnott rebuilt struts for many of their customers due to the cost factor - brand new struts cost $1800.00 vs $700 for the Arnott's. I had to question him further as to the reliability and performance of the rebuilt vs the brand new. He told me they don't have any problems after they're installed in many of the vehicles and the warranty is slightly better than Audi's struts.

ltooz_a6_a8_q7

Wow, dealers now prefer Arnott's, they must be good. Two for the price of one.
Cheers,
Louis

Basenco

I went to the Arnott site and ordered two new (not rebuilt) front struts for $1781.00. Will be installing myself and then getting the alignment after. Thanks Louis for your fine videos explaining many procedures on these Audi's.

ltooz_a6_a8_q7

Why buy pair since only one failed? Especially if you do it yourself? Why fix something not broken?

Jack88

Let's be fair, I know Arnott's don't have the adaptive dampening, therefor can't match OEM quality, but since most people here haven't gotten the rest of their suspension up to standard, I'm sure they already have a bunch of play in it that they think is normal. And in general, it's a bad idea to replace both at the same time, a waste of money going off the idea that if one is bad, the other is soon behind, but that just isn't the case in most instances.

Mister Bally

Seven or eight years apart before the 2nd front strut started leaking for me on my '04.

Basenco

Thanks for the information.

Basenco

I took all of your advices and just ordered the one strut. I received it this afternoon. Now, do I need to lift the driver's side of the car to level out before removing the strut from the passenger side? Thanks.

Jack88

Place the car in jack mode(not to be confused with lift mode,) and you can do the full job just lifting the affected side. Have a jackstand placed, you don't want the jack being the only thing to keep your car off the ground.

Dville