Is something wrong here? You can see the angle of my front Hotchkis sway bar versus the link coming down from the arm. It's very hard to get that bolt into the sway bar, and when I do there is a lot of stress going through those bushings, even at rest. As you can see, this one is shot and it's only about 11 months old.


Is this just the way it is with these?

 

Is that one of their adjustable sway bars? Maybe a less aggressive setting would help?

 

Nope, not adjustable. Just got back from my indy Audi mechanic friend, he's pretty baffled too. No way can you bend that sway bar, the arm above is an Audi brand 4d0407155. He's guessing it might be the aftermarket sway link. I've got two new ones coming. We'll see.

 

Interesting. Well good luck man, I hope the new sway bar links fix the problem.

 

Swapped the links today. Had to work to get them on, they just don't line up great. Here's the Audi control arm and the Hotchkiss bar. There's a jack under the steering knuckle and it's lowered so the whole suspension is at ride height. Note the difference in angles between the end of the sway bar and the ear on the aluminum casting control arm.





Oh, here's what it does to a sway link after 23,000 miles.

 

What RSB are you running? You might just try switching back to the stock front bar. These cars really don't need an upgraded front sway bar. The stock bar generally balances quite well with an upgraded rear bar.

I'm running an S4 RSB and stock front bar and I plan to upgrade to an 034 RSB at some point.

 

I'm in the dark. What's an RSB?

 

Rear Sway Bar.

 

Well don't I feel like a dumb newb!


Hotchkis rear bar out of the same kit. The whole thing gives a nice suspension upgrade, but I'm starting to feel like I've just had too much suspension popping noises since I did this.