Audi A4: suspension damage after only 35K

Tie rod ends wear out . . . especially if you take a lot of hard corners.

On a side note, how many sets of tires you been through already? :)

Welcome to the wacky world of German reliability: some of the most mundane long established car components simply fall apart. Even the Korean brands have surpassed VW-Audi and MB in relaibility. Go figure.

If you want to keep the car, get used to this nonsense.

ah........uh....hmmmm, i ah, um, could be guilty of driving habits similar to his, lol except i have an auto tip, so i cant bang the gears like a stick, i did have the opportunity to drive my friends wife's 2001 a4 5 speed. at first i wanted the stick but for my and the vehicles own good im glad i ended up with the auto. during the short test drive i went on in her car, i noticed that when shifting it hard the car made a nice bang from the rear end. now i guess i know how my noise came about.

You are comparing an audi piece of s*it with a Honda. What do you expect?

I saw you on the weekend, in my rearview mirror.

Honda, Nissan and Toyota are about the same and none are interesting. A couch on four wheels. You want boring and not great cars for driving? Go Japanese.

I am sure you did. Probably saw me as I flew past you, too. Me, I never notice the piece of s*it german cars broken down on the side of the road.

No really, I mean it. I bought an A4 two weeks ago and was doing about

Fine, if you prefer the mundane. There are NGs for you: alt.japansese.cars.wakemeup etc.

I looked at Infiniti, Lexus and Acura. None of them are close the A4 let alone an A6, S4 or S6. I didn't bother with BMWand MB because the AWD are over priced. The G35X is 10 years from being competitive with the A4.

The last time I drove a new Accord and Camry I thought I was going to die. I didn't and bought the 4.

Now go away.

I definitely prefer the 2000 S4 over the 1996 A4 that I traded in for it ;)

"Dave C." wrote

Thanks for the insight. I guess I do corner fairly hard, and 90% of my driving is in the city. I'd think they would have sized the motor mounts for the engine. I mean, it's not like this is an afterthought turbo bolted onto a smaller engine, it's a straight-up V6.

The very first thing I had to get used to in this car was how the V6 engine really did not like to be reved super high, unlike the little

I'm about halfway through the second set (at 35K miles). Both sets were factory approved Dunlop SP/8000E's. OK I hear the gallery spinning up to flame each other about tires now so I'll step out of the way :)

Ah, the difference between a Honda I4 and an Audi V6. They require very different driving style. The Honda engine will have all of its power at the top end, with very little torque (comparatively speaking) at lower revs. The Honda will thrive on high revs. The Audi V6, however, develops a good deal of torque in the lower to mid-band rev range, but the power falls away at high revs.

It sounds as though you've learnt that the V6 makes best progress in the

I haven't driven an Audi V6, so I can't comment on the "comparatively speaking" part. However, my 95EX Accord can easily outperform pretty much everything on the road at any speed. Now, you have to realize that this is a statement of what I have seen. This means with DRIVERS that I have seen. I have blown away Mustang GTs in my car. Obviously the drivers were idiots to get beaten by a Honda. The point is that my car, which is rather old at 150,000 miles plus, still out performs the majority of driver-vehicle combinations I come across. So even if the Audi does have more torque at low revs, I don't see why it matters. A Ferrari has the ability to go faster than my car, I presume, yet they generally don't.

As far as saying the Honda has ALL of its power at top end, that is not even close to being true. My car is almost never in first gear, as second has more than enough torque from a stop. I can easily accelerate whenever the tach is above 2000 RPMs, where you state the Audi has power at 1500 - not a huge difference.

You are in the wrong group. Here, a Honda is the second or third car on the driveway. Go to the alt.autos.honda NG. There is room there for you now.

You are an idiot. I am responding to a post in rec.autos.driving. Have you heard the expression "go f*ck yourself?"

Who says those purveyors of FWD crap have a "performance heritage"?

You've got a point there. The A4 is nice, but is it that much nicer than a Jetta with the exact same engine? I don't know. I almost bought a Jetta, but I don't think I'd drive either a Jetta or an A4 very hard. There's a fine line between aggressive driving and abusing your ride. :) If I really wanted to, I could probably torque the motor mounts of an A4 2.8 manual. But I think I'd have to deliberately TRY to do it. I can't imagine shifting that hard in everyday driving, but that's me. -Dave

You can say whatever you want about current-day Audis but to deny their heritage is just uninformed or dumb. Don't you consider the pre-War Auto Unions or the 80's Ur-Quattro very much part of a "performance heritage"?

LeMans? Ever heard of it? Big race, in France, I think. Oh, and something about rallying. Maybe you're a NASCAR fan and haven't heard of these other, minor forms of racing.

Last I heard, Audi's N. America market gets about 95% or so vehicles with AWD layout. Maybe you're still annoyed that the car mags prefer the S4 and the RS6 to just about anything made by your spinning-propeller brand. Three cheers for i-Drive, huh?

I couldn't care less about the BMW/Audi part of this argument, but anyone who can't figure out I-Drive is just plain dumb.

-Kenny