it could have been worse but my car is currently in the garage and crippled. passenger lower rear control arm completely dislodged as the bolt must have come loose and f'd up the ball joint. lucky i wasnt driving on the highway.

would replacing this pretty straight forward or do i have to remove other arms to get this installed?

pleaaaase help!

 

The control arms are usually DIY jobs (except for the alignment when needed). The ball joint is the biggest pain out of all of the mounting bolts for a given control arm, so if I were you, I'd go ahead and DIY this one. Check www.audidiy.com or www.audiworld.com for a tech article - there's bound to be something on one of them that'll guide you through the proper steps in the proper order.

 

yea its a diy. that rear bolt is a pita to get out completly. it hits the underbody before it comes completly out. on audidiy i know they have a write up on it. you will can see what i mean on there.

 

pic/step #15 is what iam talkin about
http://www.audiworld.com/tech/wheel43.shtml

 

for how long u drove w bad control arms? i need to replace them soon

 

hmm.. i just had a lot of my control arms unbolted to replace my suspension..

looks like i'm going to be checking all my bolts for tightness and maybe threadlocking them all tomorrow after seeing this!

 

i've had all my control arms replaced roughly 6 months ago after having to tolerate all the "clunk & squeek" for 4montths...i think the mechanic did not torque this particular bolt good enough.



originally i was gonna DIY all the arms but i realized i did not have enough time and would rather have the mechanic go through unbolting all the rusted/seized bolts off the car, and then i'll just apply antiseize on the bolts when they put the new ones on.

i've also got a Haynes manual with me too. I kinda just freaked out when i saw this under my car but its probably the easiest control arm to replace.