A8CT

I made a two hour drive and picked up a whole new intake which I really only needed the guts for.

I'll put some pics together from Gondar and me along with notes. Here's my initial take:

The actuating arms aren't breaking for no reason. They're getting snapped in half because the intake runners are seizing up. So, a lot of us have installed new arms (thanks to PearlA8) but they're not actually moving.

You need to either watch them move or test via Vag-com.

What I don't know is if Gondar was very lucky in cleaning his up and I was just unlucky. Both of my intake runner arms (inside the intake manifold) were seized up with no chance of pulling apart. I scavenged one arm from my old car and one from the new intake. My car overheated AND spent it's whole life in Miami so I'm sure that didn't help.

You should be able to move both arms by pulling in on the rubber vaccum part. There's a fair amount of spring tension but the vac part is incredibly strong.

I'm not sure why they seize? Lack of use and/or lubrication? The pivot point is a plastic bushing which rotates inside a magnesium casting (this is the part you see on the outside).

More to follow.....

Bob

pkrasusky

awesome data - good to know. of course sux how you had to er 'learn' 8-)

alextimmons

Good reason to punch it down! Keep them intake runners moving freely!

OOOOya

You can just grab the arm and manually rotate to check for siezure, at least on the S6 you can.

diogeniS8

Are there any instructions or TB from AUDI regarding this problem?

A8CT

no, not that I've seen

A8CT

I never seem to run out of science projects that's for sure