Jack88

I did tighten it down both in the air and back on the ground. It's a tight squeeze reaching the bolts to tighten them down with the car back on the ground.

jimmyw

I replaced my sway bar links last night and I'm very happy to find that it took care of both my rattling and creaking noises! I'm finally experiencing the buttery smooth ride the A8L is supposed to provide with way less body roll.

A few more things:

The tools you will need are a stubby Phillips screwdriver to remove the front underbody panel and a couple of 16mm sockets or wrenches. Beware that this 16mm size is usually skipped in tool sets and all the stores were closed when I first tried to take care of this on Sunday night. I ended up buying two of them for $3 each at Home Depot. I regretted not purchasing one ratcheting and one combination! To save your wrists.. buy at least one of them ratcheting (it's only $8).

I used a floor jack but it's not completely necessary. Doing this with the air suspension in lift mode won't cause any problems and it'll give you more room to get underneath the car. So raise/lift mode is okay but not tire change mode. When I had the air suspension tire change mode turned on, it let the suspension sag so low that I couldn't get my jack back out and also the bolt holes between the sway bar and sway bar link wouldn't line up. I was freaking out for a minute thinking I messed everything up! Then I turned off the setting and all was well.

I guessed as to the installation position of the new sway bar links. I just aligned up the stamped words Made in China on the old ones with the Made in Germany on the new ones and installed them in that same way. *fingers crossed* The old sway bar links had cracks in the rubber and the new ones were a way better design.

Here's a before vs. after video: BIG difference right?


It really shows how valuable all of you are here on the forums when my local dealer is telling me my noises are due to using non OEM low dust Akebono brake pads and the best indy shop in town is just straight up telling me he doesn't know what the problem is! Cheers!!

Jack88

I'm very glad to hear that worked for you. Mine wasn't nearly that bad! As a side note, after driving it a little bit, I raised the suspension via MMI and made sure all of the bolts were cinched down properly. I had one that wasn't quite tight, leading to some quiet but noticeable(to me) noise. Bolts too loose lead to premature failure, as well.

For whatever reason, your link to the video didn't work for me. Here it is again.

VentsiBeast

Is this the same part that makes cracking noise when turning the wheel at very low speeds?

Jack88

No, that's something else. I do notice a noise when I get close to lock in parking manuevers, I've been told it's something that quattros always do, something about the front diff and the type of AWD the Audi uses. That's a low kind of rumble. I'm not familiar with any other kind of noise from the front end.

VentsiBeast

Actually it's not. I didn't hear the noises when the car was brand new. I started hearing them at about 15k km and now they are stronger, currently at 20k. My service centre also said something is wrong and wanted to have a closer look at the car at my next oil change in ~500km.

Jack88

Perhaps you should make your own thread asking about it. There's a lot of smart people here, maybe someone knows what it may be or has seen it before.

VentsiBeast

No need of a new thread, I'm going to the dealer to fix it anyway. I just was curious whether it's the same part, because the problem seemed similar.

stickman1970

Thanks for the video.

I listened to it and it sounds like I have the same problem with my A8L.

Yours sounded a little more severe than mine though. I started hearing this around 65K.

I'm taking the A8 in for new tires next week. I'll have the mechanic look at it then.

Will post an update.

TimInNOVA

Jack88: THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS! My car has the same noise over speed bumps, and I've told the dealer about it many times and ask them to check the sway bar end links. Each time they tell me they're fine.

Does anyone know if the sway bar end links are covered under the factory warranty? I'd like to know before I order the parts.

Thanks!