Hey all . . . so all of a sudden, every time I hit a decent-size bump in the road (bad pothole repair, raised expansion joint, end dam, etc.) it feels like the car is being thrown to the side. I have 130,000 miles on it am assuming my shocks and/or struts are bad, but I have no mechanic I trust to take a look at it, so am not sure. Assuming it's the shock and struts, can someone tell me what would be the best to get?

I've got a 2001 A4 1.8t 5-speed manual with sport suspension. All stock, so pretty vanilla, but I'm happy with that. Any suggestions that won't break the bank would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

Are you more interested in replacing the stock setup with a less-worn-out stock setup, or taking this chance to upgrade?

 

Well . . . I'm not opposed to upgrading, but the budget is a bit tight right now, so it will probably all hinge on price. What would you suggest?

 

Well if you're happy with the stock sport setup and wanna go the OE route replacing the stuff, you can get a set of Bilstein sport dampers from ecstuning, but they're not gonna be cheap.

If you wanna upgrade to something more aggressive, i'm sure you could pick up some shocks or coil overs too.

If it was me, i'd look around on some forum classifieds, craigslist, or shokan.com to see if you can pick up some used stock dampers. There are plenty of guys with the sport suspension who've gotten rid of it in favor of a different setup, i'm sure you'll be able to find the stuff