mdwsta4â„¢uroslut

what causes control arms to fail, what causes ball joints/wheel bearings to fail, their life expectancy, and what suspension has to do with causing their failure.

reason i'm asking is when i had my winter/summer tires switched the other week, the place told me i had a loose ball joint. i could hear a 'whurring' sound coming from the driver's side front that was described to me by other people who have had the same problem as a bad wheel bearing. well i dropped my car off at the dealer to have them look at it and they said it was fine. they then commented that the ball joint was loose, but there was nothing they could do to tighten it. it will just get worse over time until it needs to be replaced (???). he then commented that the control arm will probably need to be replaced at that point. that's when i commented that i had that same control arm replaced (upper and lower) about 4 months ago!

i'm just trying to understand what's really going on here. any help would be appreciated.

thanks

moribundman

Wear and tear gets it all sooner or later, depending on a bunch of factors like the way you drive (drifting through every hairpin turn), on what kind of roads you drive, and the climate (sand, salt, dust, humidity) in which you live, etc.

They say the A4 has weak contro arms that are prone to failing. I can't say I've had a problem, and I got 123k mi on the clock.

If you need new control arms, then you may want to look into some aftermarket ones that are far superior to the OEM ones. They mentioned those the other day over at the B5 forum.

JWG

I had over 130,000 miles on mine when I had problems. I expected that the ball joints had failed. WRONG! It was the bushings.

So, I suggest that (1) you get a second opinion, and (2) check for yourself--its fairly easy to check control arms. Just, take the wheel off and you can check the up-and-down travel in the joint between the control arm and the hub when you move the control arm with (or even without) a lever (you need leverage on the lower ones, because they carry more weight than the uppers and most people lack the strength to do it solely with one's hands). If it moves, you have a bad ball joint. Similarly, try to twist the control arms toward the direction of the front and rear bumpers. If the control arms twists easily, you need new bushings.