Hi, everyone. I just bought a 1999 Audi A4 2.8 Quattro with 96000 miles on it, clean inside and out and drives great. Previous owner did no major service forpast5 years.
I like the car very much and wanna take good care of it. Yesterday I took it to mymechanic and he pointed out that two works need to be done urgently. Timingbelt due, andwear of 2 front controlarms (left side is worse, rubber seal is loosing, as he mentioned every Audi has such problem). He gave me an estimate, timing belt $800, 2 front control arms $1000. As he mentioned, he already gave me discount on this work. Can anybody here tell me if this is a reasonable price? Iheardgerman carsare expensive to maintain though.
The other thing bothers me is that he also changed the engin oil with the regular oil in his garage, which he had used on my Acura and Civic in the past. I read some thread here said Audi need synthetic oil such as Mobile one w-30. Is the regular oil going to hurt my engin in 3 months? Should I go back and ask him to flush it out and use synthetic oil?
I will greatly appreciate your comments, thanks, guys!

 

Synthetic all the way if thats what was in it before you got it. Acura's and Civic's should of been useing synthetic as well being small and rev happy. I'm no expert but $800 for a timing belt where do you live and damm whats his number lol. Control Arms ummm that should not cost $1000 I'm not that good at the whole mechnical stuff but I know I could do it for cheeper inless hes adding in ALL parts thats not a bad deal.

 

control arms are easy to change. it's only 2 bolts to take them off. just go buy the two u need and do it yourself. as for timing belt if u are very handy u should let ur mechanic do it, but buy the part urself and have ur mechanic put it in. should be cheaper that way. as for oil, change it to mobil synthetic right away. and don't ever use a fram or stp filter. always use a better filter. u might wanna check ur MAF sensor and intake filter. all that aside, u can pay me a grand to do ur control arms lol. i would love to. o ya one thing u should kno is that the bolt that holds the control arm to the spindle bracket (this big black thing that has alot of parts connected to it)may be rusted so much that u can't take it out. it happened on mine but my car was a northern car, seen alot of snow and salt.

 

Yes, you are so right. He told me that when he was trying to deassemble the right side control arm, the bracket was so rusted and fused with the control arm that he actrually bend the rod and still unable to seperate them, he ended up replacing more parts. Maybe I didn't got all his words when he explained the estimate to me at the very begining, he actrually replaced a lot of parts in this $1000 estimate. Below is the final bill I got tonight, this is in bay area, CA.

TimingBelt Kit $217.18
Micro U Belt $ 35.57
Water Pump $213.57
TimingBelt Tensionor $164.40
Coolant $ 20
Left Tie Rod End Outer $ 78.56
RightSide TieRod End Outer $159.73
RightSide Tie Rod Boot $ 15.97
LeftFront UpperFront Arm Front $132.53
LeftFront UpperFront Arm Rear $146.65

Parts Total $1184.16

I always let him do my auto work and never doubt his credit. However it is my first time paying an auto repairing bill over 2 grand, I guess it doesn't hurt to ask other audi owner's opinions.
He didn't do alignment since he does not have the equippment. Car drives pretty straight on highway when wheel was leaving free, so I guess an alignment is not urgent.

 

TimingBelt Kit $217.18
Micro U Belt $ 35.57
Water Pump $213.57
TimingBelt Tensionor $164.40
not sure about the prices but all 4 things do get replaced when doing a TB job.

LeftFront UpperFront Arm Front $132.53
LeftFront UpperFront Arm Rear $146.65
$90 a peice off the net. did you hear any creaking before he changed them? if you didnt then they didnt need to be replaced yet. the upper control creak on the slightest bump and turn when they are gone.

Left Tie Rod End Outer $ 78.56
RightSide TieRod End Outer $159.73
rip off!!!! and you got raped on the second tie-rod end!! $50 for a left t-rod and $55 for the right from autozone or o'rileys.

dont know why he would change they t-rod boot, ive never know the boot to get damamged.


have you gotten an alignment done after he replaced your tie-rod ends?? you will need one done else you will start wearing your tires down pretty badly. $70 from sears.

 

I would personaly get a second estamate from someone else, His prices sound pretty steep to me.

Also just so you can have real prices on these parts, Go to http://www. ecstuning.com, they have everything he says he's gonna replace.

 

o snap u got ripped off on those control arms. chekc ur coolant too. if it isn't red then u need to get changed to pentosin g12 coolant. never use any other type of coolant in ur audi. and like a4tuner said u definitely need an alignment even though u already spent all dat money. otherwise u'll be spending like 3 or 4 hundred bux on new tires soon.

 

i did my TB myself - $300 plus a couple days to work through everything(yours will be a little bit more since your a 2.8 you would need THIS kit which includes a locking tool for $110 that your mechanic should have). I did my TRE's(tie rod ends) myself $35 each from Purems.com and about an hour. You can buy a complete (all control arms and TRE's) set from ECStuning for under $500. Get a second opinion/estimate. Of course our prices are actually less then your mechanic because they are buying them from a local supplier. The local supplier jacks the price up and then the mechanic jacks it up again. The one price that really pisses me off is for your TRE's the left and right outer TRE are the exact same thing(no difference) so why is he charging a different price, let alone over double.