Are these control arms shot? I'm wondering how far to go with replacing suspension parts. The car has 97k miles. These pictures of the tie rod end, upper and lower control arms seem to me like the bushings are stretched out, not doing anything and basically s-h-o-t. But then again, I'm not sure what I'm really looking at.

So, who wants to take pot shots and tell me how scary these are?
Thanks.

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drive it on the freeway, if it pulls a certain direction or is hard to keep straight then there worn out, besides that i dont know by looking at them. also i know that this is a common prob on the earlier model a4s

 

not sure if you can tell by just "looking" at them. I had to replace my upper control arm and i think lower (sorry forgot). I knew i had to because when making a left turn (it was my front left control arm) and even when my car hit a bump, for example, would make a squeeling noise. Does your car make any noise "similar" to that?

 

for parts go to ecstuning and get the meyle kit with upgraded tie rod ends.

you cant realy tell by looks it is all in how they sound. uptown said it corectly

 

Got it. I just don't want to rip it all apart twice. Took it out for a ride this morning and drove it hard. No noise whatsoever, so for now I'm gonna stick to just shocks and springs to bring back that infamous Quattro handling.

Thanks for all the input.

 

you wont realy hear it if tou drive your car hard. it is more like if you go over a speed bump ,train tracks or a drive way at an angle. you might hear it squeek or groan.

 

hard to tell from just looking at it

 

the easiest way to check is driveways. pull into a few driveways at a moderate speed. if you hear a clunk (and you can also feel the steering wheel jolt very slightly) than your tie rod ends are bad...if youre getting an aftermarket suspension, that's going to put extra strain on your control arms/tie rod ends. the ecs kit that hb972.8q linked you to is AWESOME, and includes heavy duty tie rod ends that are much stronger than the stock ends, which are pretty poor quality, for audi....

 

do they sqeek if u turn the wheel, or hit some bumps. then they r shot