Anybody have experience with the RTS brand control arm kits from GermanAutoParts.com?

These kits are made in Spain and from the pictures look beefier than the typical cheap kits... They're $379 and include the solid S4-type tie rod ends.

My front end has been making clunking sounds for quite some time now, and I'm on a budget so OEM/Lemfoerder brand is out of the question. The car still drives very well, despite the rattles & clunks when driving slow over bumpy surfaces but I also want to replace the wheel bearings, shocks, and front axles all at the same time (cheap EMPI axles for the time being while I rebuild my original stock axles). I'm trying to stay under about $1000 budget for all the parts, so the ~$400 for the control arm kit will be about the max I can afford.

 

I replied in your other post. Also, I replaced my axels with a couple from O'reilley's for under $60 each. Be careful as one side is slightly shorter than the other. Just don't get them mixed up. You can also find coilovers on ECS Tuning for under 500, especially when they're on sale.

 

My springs (original "sport" suspension) are still in great shape so I'll not need to explore the coilover option. I intend to buy the Bilstein "Touring" shocks that are replacement for the stock sport suspension, as they've been reported in other threads here on the forums to be really good shocks, especially in conjunction with the Bilstein HD Sport shocks for the rear end. I'll have to wait a while, perhaps sometime in the summer to redo the rear suspension parts, but the rear end of my car seems to still be in pretty good shape. The tire wear and handling are still pretty good as is, so in the end I should end up with near S4-like suspension and handling on a 17 yr old A4 with just undr 100K on the odo.

My buddy said the Vaico (made in Turkey) control arms are OK but the RTS are better so I'm going to go ahead and buy the RTS heavy duty S4-like control arm kit and the EMPI axles from Partsgeek.com are only like $65 each so those will get my by until I can rebuild my original front axles and CV joints. All these parts from Germanautoparts.com and PartsGeek.com will run me right around $1K total so I'm staying within my budget and all these parts should get my car back to driving like a new one! I'll get them ordered on Monday and my buddy who works for the German auto specialty repair shop said we could use the shop and his tools on a weekend if I buy him a couple cases of good beer so it looks like I'll be able to get this job done quite well and on a tight budget too. That's a deal you can't beat with a stick for sure.

 

Sounds like you have a real plan. It's always good to hear about when people are taking care of the older B5s. I actually miss mine, and one day plan to get an unmolested B5 S4 and dump a bunch of money in it

 

I really love my B5. Even at 17 years old it still has styling that does not look out of date. Despite the worn front end suspension parts, it still corners and sticks to the road like a life-size HotWheels car on a railed track. I do wish there was some reasonable way to boost the engine power, but unfortunately the 30v 2.8L V6 never attracted much in the way of aftermarket soup-ups so it's stuck at the stock 190hp... which probably is a good thing since having limited horsepower probably has helped extend the overall life of the vehicle. When I want to go really fast, I have that "over vehicle" in the photo in my .sig below to do that

Copperas Cove eh? I'm a couple hundred miles NW of you up here in Wichita Falls.

 

no speeding tickets up in the sky, I assume...

Cove for now. Couple more years here and I can finally vacate this god-forsaken land