A6 Recall (lower control arms) question

Yeah they wear out - specifically the ball joints on the ends. The laugh of it is that the other arms are all of similar construction but its only the front lower arms that are covered under the recall. My (VW) dealer told me they were basically covering cars upto 130K miles so if yours go again before that the chances are you would be covered to have them replaced again. You won't be covered to replace upper arms (as I had to on an A4 at

75K miles on one side) or the rear lower arms. Its a clever suspension sustem that eliminates a lot of torque steer - but basically weak I think.

HTH

I.

I would think that torque steer would be essentially eliminated by the longitudinal engine layout and equal-length half-shafts...?

-- Mike Smith

yours must have been bad, cause i haven't seen one yet that needed replacing. It's usually the upper links that go first. It doesn't pay that well so I can't imagine a tech lying about it. Chuck

If A4's are anything to go by in your A6's case, I'll tell you that I got a recall for my '98 A4 back in '00. The car's now got roughly 95,000 miles on the counter and something is clearly wrong with the suspension again, I'd say lower control arms at a glance. Since I'm based in Europe but I've read Americans are now getting recalls, do you think I stand any chance of having that covered? I've had every main service done at Audi dealers, though not oil changes.

Any info appreciated, on similar recalls here in the old continent.

JP Roberts

"Chuck" escribió en el mensaje news:zettd.1181$E_6.1@trnddc04...

Did you have the lower control arms replaced when you took it in for that recall you mentioned? The thing to look at is the small boot right at the ball joint near the wheel to see if it is torn or raised. If it is, the lower control arm needs to be replaced. Also if you have any vertical motion in the wheel when the vehicle is lifted off the ground then the control arm is probably bad. The same inspection goes for all the rubber boots on the tie rods, upper links, and lower links. I would think that if you had a previous recall done, then that part fails again, Audi should replace it again as long as the recall hasn't expired. Yeah, they do expire. I've not heard of any control arm recalls on A4's however.

On my '98 A6, I had a bad lower control warm that had to be replaced in order to pass a safety inspection. The recall came out just at that time, so I took it in for the recall. P ssed the recall, because the little rubber boot wasn't torn, even though there was free play.

Talk about a ripoff. Had to pay full price to get it replaced.