milellie111

I have an 07 A8L with 115,000 miles i've owned for 5 years. The car has been maintained meticulously. Last year, all upper control arms and forward lower arms were replaced with Lemforder along with sway links. A couple of months ago, my drivers side air strut went out. Did not want to pay $1800 to replace with 1 OEM air strut, so my indy mechanic who has always done work to my car ordered these(both sides)

https://www.arnottindustries.com/par...17_pid174.html

These are not the remanufactured Arnott air struts that many have had success with, however they are a new aftermarket replacement made by arnott (which also bypasses the active ride control). Supposedly, Arnott told my indy they are not making the remans anymore due to high failure/return rate.

Anyway, as soon as these struts are put on my car, I notice a clunk and loose feel in the floor/steering wheel going over uneven pavement and bumps on the driver side (sort of like a loose ball joint). My indy checked everything out and said my suspension parts look tight and everything was bolted up good. They ordered another driver side strut and the same thing. They ordered a rear lower control arm(never been replace) and new sway links and the same problem. My indy is confused as to what is the issue. He suggests maybe something in the steering rack or movement inside those struts.

Any help? Would these new Arnotts cause this?

Thanks

TSHong

I don't know if the struts would be a issue but my Arnott rebuild ones make no noise at all. It sounds like a typical loose suspension components, ie control arms bushings or a bad strut mount.

MP4.2+6.0

It shouldn't have happened suddenly 90%+ of time if work was in same area. That is, the recent work remains the biggest suspect.

Other possibles are:
Back on the 90% plus case, one other idea is take the wheels off and pull the pinch bolt that holds the upper arms on the ball joint side. With recent work on struts, that sometime balky bolt should come out easily. Then see if arms go to straight out position like they should. If they angle downward, they were not installed correctly and bushings may already be screwed up. That is, the inner bolt needs to be tightened with load on the arms--or how I cheat now and just duplicate the position they are in when car is on the ground. Plus, with pinch bolt out you can move each arm around freely and really get a good look at the arm inner bushings. That is the most common rattle source, but in Lemforder (OES) and only a year old, I agree w/ you that seems unlikely.

richard-tx

The new arnott struts do NOT have electrically adjustable damping. As such, it makes no difference what mode you select, The ride is the same. That also means that if the car detects excessive travel, it will not be able to adjust the damping either. Send them back and get your old struts rebuilt.

Below is an excerpt from Arnotts web page. The adaptive damping is NOT problematic. Of all the issues we have seen over the years, adaptive damping is NOT one of them.

"This new, not remanufactured, assembly replaces the OE strut and often problematic adaptive damping "

MP4.2+6.0

I gotta say, +! !! To me it is bluntly just some cheap, half-*** solution to not finding enough cores, or not knowing what they are doing, or who knows what. As you say, I'm not sure I would need even a single finger let alone one hand to count the posts on the board about the adaptive part of the system. Literally not a one I can remember--in 10 years!! They should not trash the reputation of the system if it is really their own business supply problem, or profit motive, or incompetence, or __?__ showing. Caused me to move them well lower on my list too. Too bad.

richard-tx

I think it is just a way for them to make money. I almost got sucked into the "new" Arnott struts until I read the fine print. That wording is so vague that I considered it borderline deceptive. It was at that point that they lost all credibility with me.

I would call Arnott and complain that they did not make it clear that they disabled the electronic damping on their new struts. Had it been clear, you would have never bought them. Add to that the fact that the "new" struts are defective, and now you want to return them and have them rebuild your old struts.

If you want to avoid Arnott altogether, Call Rebuild Master Tech and have them rebuild your old struts. I don't know how RMT does it but round trip shipping for a pair of struts is $50.

RMT has a lifetime warranty.

milellie111

Thanks for the feedback guys. I agree that most likely it is an issue with Arnotts since this issue never occurred prior to putting on the struts. My indy shop specializes in Audi/German vehicles for years and have expertise in A8's, Allroads and others with air suspensions so I'm sure there was not problem with installation.

I've reached out to RMT this morning and they sent me a prepaid shipping label to send my OEM struts to them and they will rebuild. I'll keep this thread updated.

Thanks

milellie111

So, I was hoping to update this thread with some good news but unfortunately I cannot.

I was able to ship my leaking OEM factory struts to RMT for them to rebuild and they turned them around pretty quickly although they misspelled my street name which caused a screwup and delay with fedex but thats another story.

So my shop pulled off the brand new Arnotts and put on my old/"new" rebuilt struts only to regrettably inform me it didn't fix the issue. My indy shop is just as disappointed and baffled as I am. They kept my car for a couple more days, got it up on the lift and rechecked everything again for play,wear and tightened subframe bolts etc. Same clunking/loose sound when going over bumps on the driver side that can be felt.

They even sent the car to the local Audi dealership down the street and the techs there rechecked everything and said they noticed slight play in the drivers side wheel bearing when they moved it with a pry bar. The dealership said they have only heard about this issue with only one other A8 in the country before. So my shop gets it back, puts in a new wheel bearing and guess what no fix, same problem.

This has been time consumimg, frustrating and a money pit for both myself and my indy shop. They have their backs up against the wall and can't figure this out and are pretty pissed because they don't want to be defeated by this. I told them if the car wasn't paid off, i would have just traded it in. We're all out of suggestions and ideas. I keep saying it feels like a bad ball joint but they say everything looks tight and all arms have been replaced within the past year with Lemforder. Again, this happened exactly after the strut replacement.


Any last suggestions or any place in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area who can gurantee fix this? Can't afford to throw parts at the car as we're buying a house.

Thanks!

MP4.2+6.0

Two suggestions, and repeating one:

1. (repeating). Shop should stop with the simple visuals on the upper arms and the assumption if replaced last year, all good. No, saying it bluntly since it didn't seem to stick on prior reply: if they screwed up the install, they could be screwed up again, Lemforders (which I use too) or not. They have to be bolted down with load on them, or else set to at least the approximate position before the pulling them down to get into the steering knuckle and inserting the pinch bolt that holds them. If not done correctly on original install, they could be torn out again--good way to destroy a new set of arms/bushings in short order. Here is the acid test, and it wouldn't cost much. Pull pinch bolt. Upper arms should pop up to just about horizontal. If they dont--like they stay down at an angle, the install was wrong. And now they could be torn out again. Then regardless proceed with arms unbolted to move them around and really look at the inner bushings with a strong light. You can see like 10x more about bushing cracks if you take the simple sep of unbolting pinch bolt...if it isn't frozen that is. BTDT on my D3 specifically--inspection is way better and certain if you free them up on pinch bolt side.

2. If #1 isn't it, proceed to tighten steering rack adjustment. Search on my prior posts. It can get rattling type noise out if the rack has worn and that turns out to be source. Knowledge that rack is even adjustable seems long lost on Audis, but I have eventually done it on every older one I have had with some accumulated miles. If shop does not actually know about it or how to do it, well, hmmm...

3. Oops, later edit. Repeat #2 as far as ideas. So, what's the story on the sway bar? I don't see any info/update here about it unless I missed something. Worn bushings on sway bar is a known D3 issue, especially early ones but probably none are immune. Being clear, the main bushings fused to the bar, over and above the U shaped end links that also probably wear by 100K. Were they checked? It's easy to unbolt sway bar from the subframe (like 10 minutes work w/ belly pan dropped). They should have been looking at that area probably before going to pretty far fetched things like the subframe bolt up.

milellie111

2 months later and I'm still dealing with the same issue. 117,000 miles on it now. Front end feels horrible going over bumps. Noticeble loud clunks that you feel in the steering wheel with looseness. Arms were installed correctly with load on them. Car actually spent 3 weeks at an Audi dealer, they thought it could be upper arms on driver side they replaced them that wasn't it. Everything looks tight they unbolted the whole front suspension and drove it with the sway bar off. Still there. They had to walk away from the car They have never seen this before. Haven't tried the steering rack tightening tho.