Hey all, Im new to the forum but it looks great. Im picking up my first audi next week, and its actually my first car. I have been around them and my dad has owned a few, and i love them. But the audi a4 im looking at has one problem... the front right control arm squeeks. I know audis are not cheep to fix, but was really hoping this is something that could be done for under 500. Thanks in advance

 

These cars are known for control arm problems. If you have a decent set of tools and some mechanical aptitude, you can do the majority of the work required on the A4 - make sure to get familiar with this forum's DIY section, as well as the tech areas of www.audidiy.com and www.audiworld.com - you'll find a treasure trove of DIY procedures on these sites, and you'll find that you can walk yourself through them pretty well.

As for the control arm problem, you can order individual arms or a complete set of them (the full set is around $550 I believe). They can be swapped out with basic tools...most of the time. On the front, the upper arms are connected with a pinch bolt (that bolt is the f***ing devil), so be prepared to possibly break it, probably bleed, and definitely swear until your windows are fogged when you try to remove it. Obviously you'll have to align the car at a shop - can't really do that yourself - but the part replacement is easily within the abilities of most people with some car knowledge and tools. Air tools will help tremendously, and torches can come in handy, but some of those arms can be done with breaker bars, ratchets, and sockets.

 

do you think i should get the complete kit or should I just replace the front right?

 

A complete set will run you about $300 - 450 depending on which kit you get. I just happen to have a set of right upper control arms from a kit that I parted out due to an accident. If you want them I will sell them to you for $65 shipped. They are new and still in the package.

I would look over the suspension to see if any other parts are worn. If it looks good with the exception of the squeaking one then just replace it. If some other ones look bad and money is not a factor than I would replace all of them. I just did a 13 piece control arm kit about 8 months ago so when I go hit on my passenger side, I did not know the extent of the damage so I ordered a complete set again.

After I found out that I only needed to replace the two lower control arms on the passenger side I parted out the rest of the kit. I only have the right upper control arms and the sway bar end links left.

 

Like Fred said, if you have the extra money, it's probably worth it to buy the whole setup at some point, because the arms are known weak points of this car. If the only ones you need to fix, after examining them, are the right uppers, you could buy his and be done with it. Quite a few people, when finding out that they have a bad arm, end up buying the whole set, so that as others fail down the line, they have the proper replacement part on hand. Whichever way works better financially for you is obviously the way to go. What you will probably find though is that if you were to buy each control arm individually, it'd cost a decent amount more than buying the whole batch together in a kit.