Swarf in Power Steering circuit!
 

I posted some comments in this thread, starting at post #26: http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthrea...t=13934&page=3

My son's Audi S4 Avant had power steering problems, details of which I'm not 100% sure of.
He took it to Chingford Audi (this MAY or may not turn into a name-and-shame) who charged him a LOT of money (about £2K I think) to "fix" it. Again, no details but I can get them.

Just a few days later it failed, loss of power assistance. They blame "air" pointing to some minor comment on the invoice about bringing it back after 3 weeks or so to be "checked". :Confused:
(As noted in the other thread the system is probably self-bleeding so this is twaddle)

A few more days after they "fixed" it it failed again! :angry2:
On investigation Audi Chingford now say this was down to "swarf" and they have fixed it.

My son has (as I just discovered talking to him) no idea what swarf is. :tuttut:
So I told him. Not happy, he thought it was just grubby dirt that you could clean off with Swarfega! :-(

To my mind there could be damage anywhere now, so the whole PAS system needs ripping out and replacing with totally new. What do you good people think?

He also has incurred significant expense in getting the car recovered twice plus lots of inconvenience.

I'll leave it to others more qualified to give you proper guidance, but apart from getting everything fully documented so far as dates and costs are concerned, including loss of earnings, I'd be demanding that the full thing be replaced with a new one at their expense, and a suitable monetary apology issued by the managing director. In addition, your son should have something better than normal for a courtesy car while they sort their mess out.

I'm assuming here that the PAS unit is a sealed unit, so how the hell does swarf get into it. :-(

Incompetent workmanship when undertaking repairs?

No loss of earnings, he walks to work. :ROFL:

ah but they dont know that!! :rolleyes:

So what work required drilling/reaming (or whatever) to produce swarf in the system? I guess that you need to establish the link between the work undertaken and the resulting failures. Or show that there is no previous condition which could concievably have led to this situation. They do seem to have accepted that already. But the next step would be to argue that, although they say that its now fixed, to get a categorical assurance to state that what has been now been done is a complete solution. And unless they can provide that assurance to insist that they replace the whole system.

You will also need to show what loss had be incurred. More than shoe leather i would guess?

The only thing that could cause swarf in the system is the pump self-destructing, due to being run dry or cavitating.

Suspect #1 is that it sprung a leak somewhere and ran dry, hence a loss of power steering - the original fault perhaps? If it was run for any significant amount of time like that the pump could have shredded itself and sent debris round the system.

Dealership fixes the leak, tops it up and sends it out of the door, but the damage is done - swarf from the pump is now travelling round the system destroying seals and moving surfaces. Eventually it kills a seal somewhere that causes the system to lose pressure - loss of power steering again. Dealership replaces the pump perhaps? Rinse and repeat...

However it happened, if there is now swarf in the system all components are toast and need replacing - rack, pump, reservoir, cooler, and all the hoses. Its impossible to flush metallic particles out properly so they will just travel round the system trashing any seals or moving surfaces with which they come in to contact. Its like putting petrol in a commonrail diesel engine - the pump grenades and takes everything else with it.

Thanks MJ, that's what I sort of expected, but put rather bluntly. I've passed that on to him verbatim. +++

Same deal with air conditioning.
When the pump goes...
Aluminium powder everywhere!

I don't know exactly what the dealer did, but my son has his car back.

He also has in writing that there is a 2-year guarantee on the work they have done.

And the technician who did the original job "no longer works there". (fired he thinks)

A good result in the end then :) Fingers crossed its actually fixed!