Today's checklist: New Conti SportContact3 tires mounted, a four wheel alignment and two suprises.
10-13-2008, 06:21 PM
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Today's checklist: New Conti SportContact3 tires mounted, a four wheel alignment and two suprises.
If you have been following my recent saga of the strange vibration my A4 has been experiencing over the last month, here is the latest and hopefully last installment.
The new Continental SportContact3's I ordered arrived at my indy shop last week and since I had today (Columbus Day) off I made plans to have the new tires mounted and a four wheel alignment performed to fix any toe (in/out) issues. I arrived at the shop at 8am where they were ready to get to work.
Now for the suprises. After the tech (excuse me, mechanic with 25 years of experience) at the indy shop took my car out for a brief shake down and got the car up on the lift he came into the office to report an unexpected finding.
The bolt on the driver's side connecting the front H-Sport sway bar was nolonger holding the sway bar in place. This might explain the occasional light clunking sound while making sharp slow uphill turns I was experiencing. Could this also be causing the vibration at highway speeds? The odd thing is that I had inspected the sway bar end links two weeks agao when I removed the 18's and put on my winter wheels and they were all intact. I guess that the bolt gave out recently.
At this time a fellow AW'er (Many of you know him as Boston Driver) came by with his son and offered to take me out for a coffee run. When we returned 30 minutes later I was greated by the shop forman who informed me of two additional suprises.
1) The sway bar bolt that was missing had sheared off and most of it was still in the bar. They were attempting to remove it by welding something to the bolt so they could back out the rest of the bolt.
2) My driver's side inner CV bolt was ripped and was in need of replacement. They brought me into the shop and when they showed me the condition of the sway bar bolt I could see the mess that the torn inner C/V boot had left. Like the sway bar inspection I had inspected the C/V boots two weeks ago and the boot was dry.
Luckily for me Boston Driver and Jr. Driver were still at the shop and we decided to make a dash to my house to get my OEM sway bar just in case the shop was unable to get the sheared bolt out of the H-Sport bar they could install the OEM bar. Well that trip proved unless as I could not find the OEM front sway bar. Hmmmmm. Rear OEM bar was there but the front one was no where to be found. When I have a spare hour I am going to tear my garage apart looking for that thing.
Anyway, after a pit stop at McDonald's for a quick bite to eat it was back to the shop. At 2pm the mechanic came in to tell the foreman that the front axle had been removed, the new boot installed, packed with greese and was back on the car along with the H-Sport sway bar that they had managed to get the sheared bolt out and replaced it. They could now do the four wheel alignment. Yipeee.
So after 7 hours I was on my way with new Conti SportContact3 tires, an alignment, a repaired front sway bar and repaired front inner C/V boot. And on a side note my A4 is now sporting a fresh new 18" 15 spoke 25th Anniverary B7 S4 wheel that replaced the one that was sadly severely curbed 18 months ago. I bought the new wheel last year but decided to wait until I replaced the tires to put it into service. The curbed wheel is now in the spare tire well. What should have been a 2 - 2 1/2 hour service visit took 6 hours and cost an extra $400 dollars for the C/V boot job and the sway bar repair. Oh well, it had to be done.
The drive home was spent avoiding potholes and listening for the vibration which I did not detect. Whew, what a day. Thanks to the great staff at Little Foreign Car Garage in Waltham, MA. They did a great job. Thanks also to Boston Driver for spending more time than he had planned with me today and for recommending the shop.
The new Continental SportContact3's I ordered arrived at my indy shop last week and since I had today (Columbus Day) off I made plans to have the new tires mounted and a four wheel alignment performed to fix any toe (in/out) issues. I arrived at the shop at 8am where they were ready to get to work.
Now for the suprises. After the tech (excuse me, mechanic with 25 years of experience) at the indy shop took my car out for a brief shake down and got the car up on the lift he came into the office to report an unexpected finding.
The bolt on the driver's side connecting the front H-Sport sway bar was nolonger holding the sway bar in place. This might explain the occasional light clunking sound while making sharp slow uphill turns I was experiencing. Could this also be causing the vibration at highway speeds? The odd thing is that I had inspected the sway bar end links two weeks agao when I removed the 18's and put on my winter wheels and they were all intact. I guess that the bolt gave out recently.
At this time a fellow AW'er (Many of you know him as Boston Driver) came by with his son and offered to take me out for a coffee run. When we returned 30 minutes later I was greated by the shop forman who informed me of two additional suprises.
1) The sway bar bolt that was missing had sheared off and most of it was still in the bar. They were attempting to remove it by welding something to the bolt so they could back out the rest of the bolt.
2) My driver's side inner CV bolt was ripped and was in need of replacement. They brought me into the shop and when they showed me the condition of the sway bar bolt I could see the mess that the torn inner C/V boot had left. Like the sway bar inspection I had inspected the C/V boots two weeks ago and the boot was dry.
Luckily for me Boston Driver and Jr. Driver were still at the shop and we decided to make a dash to my house to get my OEM sway bar just in case the shop was unable to get the sheared bolt out of the H-Sport bar they could install the OEM bar. Well that trip proved unless as I could not find the OEM front sway bar. Hmmmmm. Rear OEM bar was there but the front one was no where to be found. When I have a spare hour I am going to tear my garage apart looking for that thing.
Anyway, after a pit stop at McDonald's for a quick bite to eat it was back to the shop. At 2pm the mechanic came in to tell the foreman that the front axle had been removed, the new boot installed, packed with greese and was back on the car along with the H-Sport sway bar that they had managed to get the sheared bolt out and replaced it. They could now do the four wheel alignment. Yipeee.
So after 7 hours I was on my way with new Conti SportContact3 tires, an alignment, a repaired front sway bar and repaired front inner C/V boot. And on a side note my A4 is now sporting a fresh new 18" 15 spoke 25th Anniverary B7 S4 wheel that replaced the one that was sadly severely curbed 18 months ago. I bought the new wheel last year but decided to wait until I replaced the tires to put it into service. The curbed wheel is now in the spare tire well. What should have been a 2 - 2 1/2 hour service visit took 6 hours and cost an extra $400 dollars for the C/V boot job and the sway bar repair. Oh well, it had to be done.
The drive home was spent avoiding potholes and listening for the vibration which I did not detect. Whew, what a day. Thanks to the great staff at Little Foreign Car Garage in Waltham, MA. They did a great job. Thanks also to Boston Driver for spending more time than he had planned with me today and for recommending the shop.
10-13-2008, 07:32 PM
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That's great news to hear you got it sorted out.
Not so great that the items fixed were not planned for that visit....but needed to be done. You may consider getting your car aligned on an ongoing annual basis to maximize your new tires tread life.
10-14-2008, 03:41 AM
#4
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Nice! Remember when I posted about my front sway end link that sheered off?
Do you know if they put in the same OE bolts again? Lee had put different ones (I forget the material it was made of but much stronger than the OE ones and cost a bit more too) to ensure that they wouldn't sheer off again.
What did you do in the past two weeks that caused the bolt to sheer and the CV boot to rip?
What did you do in the past two weeks that caused the bolt to sheer and the CV boot to rip?
10-14-2008, 07:05 AM
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crazy how the sway had nothing connecting it...glad to hear things are better, going in a hour...
to get my fuel filter replaced at a indy shop. Hopefully that will fix my noise/pumping/electronic sound coming from under the rear passenger door. It just flat sucks that you go in for a minor thing and turns into a major thing. At least you had: 1. Coffee with fellow AW'er and 2. McDonalds with said friend.
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10-14-2008, 11:51 AM
#10
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Glad to have helped, even though it was a fool's errand for the OEM sway...
...fortunately, I had one of the Star Wars DVDs in the trunk so my son could be entertained on the drive.