austinado16

Finally had a chance today to give the front suspension a closer look in order diagnose the cause of the rapid thudding we get when going over sharp bumps.

First a little background:
Bought the car June 14, 2006 with 175k on the clock. Previous owner had just had KYB Gas Adjust front strut inserts installed, along with new upper strut bushings (of unknown manufacture). Within a couple of months I replaced the KYB's with Sachs/Boge, and the failed lower control arms with Febi-Bilstein while chasing a thudding in the floor. Lower control arms cured that problem.

About 6 months ago, started to notice a sharp knock that appeared to come from the driver's side suspension over certain sharp road surface changes, like pot holes, man hole covers, creases in the pavement, etc. It was very subtle, so I let it go until it was loud and frequent enough to be easily heard and reproduced.

What I've found:
On initial inspection about a month ago I found the ball joint boot on the left Febi control arm was torn all the way around. So, whether or not that control arm is actually causing the problem, it is still junk and has to be replaced.

In the last week the noise has become much more frequent and even my wife said, "I think it's getting worse." Trust me, for her to notice anything car related would mean it had already catastrophically failed.

I popped the plastic cap of the left upper strut, placed plastic panels under each front wheel and then turned the steering wheel back and forth about 1/4 turn in each direction.

Sure enough, the upper strut bushing is completely torn away and the center is banging back and forth. A very slid thud can be felt and heard as the bushing "pops" left to right inside it's housing.

Underneath the car, the inner bushing of the left Febi control arm is torn.

The control arm and bushing both have roughly 25,000mi on them!

I've sent an email to the Febi rep that Daveinsaltlake was exchanging emails with, and I told him what I thought of their German boxed Chinese parts, and their claimed super low "failed part return rate."

DaveInSaltLake

of 12 months is like bragging that your company pays a dollar more per hour than minimum wage.

Audi Logic

So planned obsolescence.. reason for low failure rate is they don't count any after a year

austinado16

Can you imagine how long Febi would be in business if VW/Audi/BMW/Mercedes/Volvo started having to replace suspension components in just 25,000mi?

I wrote back (answering his question; "What is it that you would like me to do for you at this point?") and said, I didn't write him to try and get free parts, I wrote him to let him know about the quality of his product.

I also told him that along with the torn boot and bushing, I'd found the upper strut mount had failed and that that was most likely the noise source.

32vquattro

My oem mounts are original @ 90K + miles and 16 years old!! If all there giving is 1 year/25K miles, well s**t, I can get that from myle and pay half that. Tell the febi guy to chew on that!

DaveInSaltLake

quattro CA's and just under $300 for non-q CA's.

I'd be curious to know who currently supplies those.

austinado16

I agree, as their North American Rep, seems to be a lot of back pedaling going on.

austinado16

Turns out the front strut mounts: 4A0412377C are also a VW part, so I just ordered them from my local dealer. $97.40ea and I get about a 10-15% discount from them. They're only $20ea at autohausaz for "JL Germany" but after 1 of these has failed in 25,000mi (the previous owner had just had them done when I bought the car). I really don't want to be replacing them anytime soon.

Was going to go with Carson at Riverside Audi www.audipartsdepot.com, until I went to their website and discovered they're in New Jersey....a week or more away in shipping time. I will use them for the lower control arms next month.

I've got the wife in the Rabbit diesel pickup right now, and that's a bad combination....so I need the Avant back on the road asap. If you know what I mean.

austinado16

Got the new upper strut mounts from the VW Dealer today. $178.41 with my discount and sales tax.

I drew around the old ones with a sharpie so I wouldn't screw up the alignment. They take about 15min per side to replace and I jacked up the corner I was working on, just enough to take the load of the old bushings. A metric allen socket in the center of the strut insert's shaft, and a 22mm box end to remove that big center nut. Then a 17mm socket to remove the 3 nuts holding the strut mount in place.

I replaced both sides and it's like owning a new car again. (Both sides still had their big concave washers and I'd suggest everyone make sure there's are still fitted!) Dead quiet, and solid like a tank over any road surface...where before, driving down the street was like some sort of chinese water torcher with all the rapid thudding and thumping that was going on.