Wrong suspension parts

[spartacus 68]

Apologies, but this is a bit of a rant.

Audi Allroad 2.0 TDI (177ps). I was reversing out of the drive last Saturday and the car made a loud bang. I knew immediately it was a coil spring. I've owned Audis for years, but didn't expect it to be the front suspension.

So offside front spring had broken and dropped slightly. Just great. I was meant to be catching a ferry to the Outer Hebrides in a matter of hours. Ordinarily I'd cancel and rebook, but this is my main summer holidays, plus the Caledonian Macbrayne ferry was booked back in April, and this conincided with Heb Fest annual music festival in Stornoway, so cancelling or postponing could mean there wasn't an available slot and the holiday would be scuppered.

Did I mention I was hauling a trailer too? This is probably what caused it, as I trailer a fast RIB inflatable boat during the season. You can't come to the west coast without a boat!

So some quick thinking, I've done the front suspension before on previous Audis, but it's 2.30pm on Saturday, main Audi dealer is closed for parts, can I fix it? Called Euro Car Parts (I know my first mistake). Gave them the registration and the colour code on the spring. Yes they had a part in stock. It's times like this that you turn to religion. Yes!

Did the 50 mile round trip to get the spring. Sachs part. Got home and tried to fix the car. The temperature is now 25 degrees. Wheel off and a liberal coating of Plus Gas on the pinch bolt. The car is 2012 and just under 50k miles. This bolt isn't going to play ball. I used the extension bar once the nyloc nut was off on the bolt. It turned and started to come out. Great, progress. Few more turns and I could see the bolt was deformed and this would be a strut out job. Rather than risk disabling the car altogether, I put it back together.

Between this I did another 50 mile round trip to my brother to borrow his X5 as my plan B, but he couldn't find the detachable Witter towbar key. Words defeated me at this point.

My brother suggests 'just drive the bu**er'. Things were desperate, and without another option, I chose to use the Audi. In the interests of H&S... my family travelled in another car!

****** thing performed a miracle until Ullapool when another part of the spring disintegrated.

So now here we are on the West Coast, with a goosed tow car. Phoned a local garage that came recommended and said I had the part. Was booked in for earlier today. As I thought, they had to remove the strut completely to press the bolt out. In the process they've marked the inside plastic wheel arch. I can live with it, but it shouldn't happen.

The height on the front looks high. Call me paranoid, but I've been to hell and back. I know springs should be replaced in pairs, but I was just glad to have the car fixed. On closer inspection of the original receipt it looks like Euro Car Parts have screwed up. I gave them the registration, engine size and colour dots on the OE part, but looks like they've given me the wrong part.

I checked their website, put in the car details and it throws up another part number for a petrol car.

Car is drivable of course. I'm going to call Euro Car Parts tomorrow for an explanation. Can't do much about it just now. I'm hoping for a refund and a replacement part. God knows what they will say. I'm out of pocket for the garage fixing the replacement part, but I can swap over on my return. I'm tempted to just get original OE part from Audi as have absolutely no faith in Euro to provide the correct specification.

 

[Ginge247]

Apologies, but this is a bit of a rant.

Audi Allroad 2.0 TDI (177ps). I was reversing out of the drive last Saturday and the car made a loud bang. I knew immediately it was a coil spring. I've owned Audis for years, but didn't expect it to be the front suspension.

So offside front spring had broken and dropped slightly. Just great. I was meant to be catching a ferry to the Outer Hebrides in a matter of hours. Ordinarily I'd cancel and rebook, but this is my main summer holidays, plus the Caledonian Macbrayne ferry was booked back in April, and this conincided with Heb Fest annual music festival in Stornoway, so cancelling or postponing could mean there wasn't an available slot and the holiday would be scuppered.

Did I mention I was hauling a trailer too? This is probably what caused it, as I trailer a fast RIB inflatable boat during the season. You can't come to the west coast without a boat!

So some quick thinking, I've done the front suspension before on previous Audis, but it's 2.30pm on Saturday, main Audi dealer is closed for parts, can I fix it? Called Euro Car Parts (I know my first mistake). Gave them the registration and the colour code on the spring. Yes they had a part in stock. It's times like this that you turn to religion. Yes!

Did the 50 mile round trip to get the spring. Sachs part. Got home and tried to fix the car. The temperature is now 25 degrees. Wheel off and a liberal coating of Plus Gas on the pinch bolt. The car is 2012 and just under 50k miles. This bolt isn't going to play ball. I used the extension bar once the nyloc nut was off on the bolt. It turned and started to come out. Great, progress. Few more turns and I could see the bolt was deformed and this would be a strut out job. Rather than risk disabling the car altogether, I put it back together.

Between this I did another 50 mile round trip to my brother to borrow his X5 as my plan B, but he couldn't find the detachable Witter towbar key. Words defeated me at this point.

My brother suggests 'just drive the bu**er'. Things were desperate, and without another option, I chose to use the Audi. In the interests of H&S... my family travelled in another car!

****** thing performed a miracle until Ullapool when another part of the spring disintegrated.

So now here we are on the West Coast, with a goosed tow car. Phoned a local garage that came recommended and said I had the part. Was booked in for earlier today. As I thought, they had to remove the strut completely to press the bolt out. In the process they've marked the inside plastic wheel arch. I can live with it, but it shouldn't happen.

The height on the front looks high. Call me paranoid, but I've been to hell and back. I know springs should be replaced in pairs, but I was just glad to have the car fixed. On closer inspection of the original receipt it looks like Euro Car Parts have screwed up. I gave them the registration, engine size and colour dots on the OE part, but looks like they've given me the wrong part.

I checked their website, put in the car details and it throws up another part number for a petrol car.

Car is drivable of course. I'm going to call Euro Car Parts tomorrow for an explanation. Can't do much about it just now. I'm hoping for a refund and a replacement part. God knows what they will say. I'm out of pocket for the garage fixing the replacement part, but I can swap over on my return. I'm tempted to just get original OE part from Audi as have absolutely no faith in Euro to provide the correct specification.

I always avoid the pinch bolts and undo the upper arms from the bolts at the back then just swing them round out the way m8.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[rum4mo]

Coil springs eh? I can see that you will only be happy if and when you replace both sides with Audi springs!
My first front spring breaking experience was on New Years Day when we were planning to go to a New Years Concert, after the twang coming out of the garage, I attempted to ignore it and reverse up my driveway, well that did not work (car was a 2002 Polo 9N just over 5 years old and about 40K miles), the engine undercover was acting as a gravel scoop, so back into the garage it went (try getting parts and extra tools at New Year time in Scotland!) and we took my car. On that occasion the spring broke at exactly half height! On that occasion I bought new springs from VW)
Second front spring breaking experience was while driving down to MK for my sister's funeral, we were stopping at Oxford to collect my younger daughter and near there a clunk noise followed by some other noises when driving round a roundabout, when we stopped in Oxford I checked the car,(VW Passat 4Motion B5 2001MY), no wheel gap on near side! The AA sent out a patrol the day after the funeral and he was trialling a "fix it on the spot" initiative that the AA had started, now he was very lucky as these Passats had steel uprights and I had read about the issues with the clinch bolts, so a few months earlier, I had started to free up that bolt and coat it with copper slip, so he got the strut out, got a spring at GSF (Lesjofors) and got me back on the road home where I got another spring from GSF and changed the other side.
Third front spring breaking experience was when driving from our house to the airport in my daughter's late 2009 Ibiza, we were in plenty time, so it started with clanging noises as if there was a spanner rattling around on the engine then it stopped and I noticed something bouncing about in the road behind me, as usual stopping to go back and investigate was tricky, but I made it, parked at the side of the road and found the tail end of the spring, remainder seemed intact enough on car, so as that was the car that was booked into the car park and we only had maybe 15 miles to drive, I just continued without any other issues and repaired it when we returned from holiday.
I did use ECP and it was Sachs springs and they did look a bit higher when the car was back on its wheels, the c/s of "wire" used was slightly smaller and there was an extra 1/2 coil - none of that was very good, but as it was my daughter's car and she was returning to work in UK in a month's time and I had suggested that she thought about only keeping it for another year to 18 months, I've just left these springs on it, I'm not very happy with ECP about that though, GSF do seem to be able to source proper springs Lesjofors - which were the springs that the AA and then I fitted to the VW Passat 4Motion - and from the online Lesjofors catalogue they were the correct items.
Cars love winding us up, don't they!!

 

[spartacus 68]

You're right rum4mo, cars are a continual source of frustration and pleasure.

Update. Checked with Audi on Saturday, so correct part (there are numerous spring variations) is 8KO 411 105 DH, orange dot and two violet dots. Also checked with Euro Car Parts but they are adamant that the part they sold me is correct.

Measured height of offside right (new spring) from ground to base of wheel arch, 730mm, original nearside 740mm, both rears were 735mm. Planning to wait another week for things to settle.