I took my car to the shop to get it looked at for what I thought was just a shot strut. Boy was I wrong. Turns out both of my front outer tie rod ends are bad, and so are all four of the upper ball joints on the front end. Finally my rear toe links in the back are both shot (which I have never heard of "toe links" and ecs does not recognize the name either). I did have the guy take me into the shop to show me what was wrong, and yes they are all bad he was a very good trustworthy guy that answered every question I had except for a quote. He said they do not work on 4-point suspension systems at that shop so he could not give me a quote (which also means he would not lie to me since he wouldnt do the work). I checked out autozone online and the parts alone will run me about $300, not including the toe links. I looked at the DIY for the tie rod links and that seemed to not be too bad but I feel replacing the upper ball joints may be a little too much. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do, or what the "Toe Links" are?

 

OEM / Performance Parts for Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Mini, Porsche & Volkswagen - ECS Tuning

ECS has them listed under tie rod, and technically either term is correct for describing that part in the rear of your car.

As for the front suspension/tie rods, you can get a full kit including all control arms and outer tie rod ends from FCP Groten for $200-250. Many people including myself would recommend going this route.

Are you able to DIY? Since my car is FWD I don't know how difficult the rear toe links are but I imagine they can't be that tough (just make sure to get an alignment afterwards...) The front suspension is a bit of a pain, but it's definitely do-able especially if you follow the DIY guides.

 

have these parts been on their way out? I am just confused as to how your entire suspension system is needing replaced at the same time haha

Procrastinator????

 

+1, first I replaced only my upper arms, still had a clunk, turned out my lowers were bad too. If they havent failed yet they are going to. Your best bet is to get a kit and replace all of the front linkages-- this will save you a ton of money in the long run.

 

Yeah I had noticed a small noise awhile ago but could not figure out what it was and it just recently get really bad.

 

I'm in the same boat - I went in the shop for a timing belt replacement and came out with a quote to redo the frontend suspension. One blown strut and bad upper control arms on both sides. I've always told myself that if it came to this I wanted to upgreade the suspension to a more sport ride.

I ordered the car with the sport suspension option but can't find anywhere where it's different from the standard 2004 A6 2.7T suspension. Anyway there have been a couple of suggestions regarding kits is there a "sportier" kit than the ECS or Groton ones?

 

Two questions guys.

1. Is there a way to replace the upper ball joints with out taking apart the whole damn suspension?

2. How long will I be able to drive on these problems? It is going to cost a pretty penny to get it all fixed up and I do not have the money right now.

 

It is not possible to replace only the ball joint (really sucks), the part that likely failed is the swivel joint, closest the wheel, you can not press in new joints for them unfortunately. If you dont hear any noise you could postpone fixing them, if you hear a squeek then relatively soon they will get worse, and if they are clunking then its more serious (although they will hang on for a while), eventually they will fail. The previous owner of my car was driving around with them clunking forever and none of them failed, but you never know.

IMO if 300 dollars is hard to come by, it would be in your best interest to only keep the car if you do work on it yourself. Parts and especially labor just arent that cheap for these cars. e.g a timing belt job for the 1.8T is about 350 to do it yourself and somewhere around 1000 if you dont. If you do plan to fix them I strongly recommend you do the lowers, links, tie rod ends at the same time using a kit like we've mentioned (so yes, basically you will have removed and changed the entire suspension, minus the shocks and struts), it will save you a ton of money in the long run (and more likely the short term, if your uppers are going, your lowers will probably soon follow).