Hi - first post for me on this site, I recently bought a used 2000 Avant on 18's and a lowered suspension, and going against my better judgement I bought it without spending any real time with the car on the road. Well it turns out the suspension set up is not very settled, particularly at highway speeds. It floats considerably and seems to have more lean in the bends than my last A4 had, and it certainly has more than I want. In fact, it kinda makes my wife a bit car sick when she is a passenger. The car is low (ride height from ground to highest point of wheel arch is 25 3/4" front and 24 3/4" rear or 2 finger gap front and 1 finger gap rear), which would sort of indicate that the car is sagging at the back but I think the dimensions of the wheel arches are different front to back thus contributing to what looks on paper to be a sag. In person I think the stance looks "right". It's clear the car needs shocks - I have almost settled on the Bilstein sports after much reading, unfortunately Koni is just out of the budget right now, so too are coilovers or a matched spring/shock combo. I need some opinions on the following;

1. Local tuner thinks that even Bilstein sports would be too long with the car sitting at this height. Anybody else running the same ride height and Bilsteins care to comment? Surely they wouldn't be too long, the car isn't THAT low.........

2. Am I sagging or is this a good result for an Avant? Like I said I like the look, but I'd like to hear some others tune in on their drop and where their car sits.......

Interested to hear your thoughts....

TIA

 

I run H&R sports with Bilsteins.....I have yet to measure ground to fender though. I don't see why bilsteins wouldn't work.

Do you or the mechanic you took the car to know what the set-up is currently?

 

No we don't and that's part of my problem. Shocks are stock, springs are blue in color but I cannot locate any identifying marks on them. Ideally I'd like to chuck the whole lot and start with a complete package, but I lost my jobs recently and it's not really an option, but I have to do something to tighten this pig up, I think it would almost be dangerous riding the way it is on the wrong road in the wrong hands......

I'll just go and check the manufacturers sticker now and see if it was equipped originally with sport suspension.

 

It has a 1BA suspension code on the manufacturers sticker in the trunk, so that's the code for the bone stock suspension, meaning I have lowered springs on stock shocks. Helps explain why she wallows

 

Just to keep you informed, my H&R sport springs are a dark blue hue...it could be possible the previous owner put H&R sport springs on, as you stated, the stock shocks.

 

interesting to hear about the poor handling with stock shocks and lower springs, any of you other guys experience anything similar?

 

My springs are kind of a light blue color, maybe they've been in there a while and faded? Any chance you could measure your ride height to help me get an indication as to whether my car sits too low to work with Bilsteins? I know it's not much to go on, but it's another piece of the puzzle. Thanks

 

Definitely....I'll post up the measurement as soon as I get it.

 

i would say the say same thing i have a 99 a4 avant i had bought some used coilovers from craigslist.i did not know that there were different coil overs for the audi .so when installed
my h&r suspension i was wondering why i could not raise the car so i called h&R and it was told to me i have the ultra lows my car looks great but the ride sucks .

 

To me, if its lowered and 'wallows', then it was lowered with the wrong springs and the spring rate is way too low for a heavy car like an Avant. They could even be cut stock springs from a different application, like a VW.