Hi,
When i had my car serviced 2 months back with Jack Barclay Audi, they highlighted that my front upper suspension arms were on their way out and that the lower ones were going to be coming up. I had noticed a few squeeks going over the odd speed bump here and there.
On top of this, I also had 2 dead electronic parking brake (EPB) calipers.
So, rather than mess around, i thought i'd take a deep breath and replace the lot on the basis that i'm going to be keeping the car for hopefully some time to come and i really didn't want to do the suspension arms bit by bit. Audi quoted me near £5k so it was off to do some research.
The list of parts I needed were:
Suspension arms:
- Front axle left upper front
- Front axle right upper front
- Front axle left upper rear
- Front axle right upper rear
- Front axle left lower front
- Front axle right lower front
- Front axle left lower rear
- Front axle right lower rear
- Front axle left and right drop links
Calipers with EPB:
- NSR EPB Caliper
- OSR EPB Caliper
I decided on going the whole hog on branded parts as opposed to own brand (you buy cheap, you buy twice) and chose Lemforder for the suspension arms given they are OEM to Audi and TRW for the EPBs. EuroCarParts quoted £1,600 and after borrowing the Honda Civic forum discount code 'FORUMCIVINFO', got it down to £1.3k...and you get about £100 back if you return the old calipers too making it £1.2k.
I had my local independent fit all the parts and they did it for £400 including 4 wheel laser alignment making it all a grand total of £1600 which was a steal given the job and time taken. Both front suspension mounts had to come out in order to get the main pinch bolts out.
All in all, the car drives beautifully and SO much firmer. I should hopefully be free of suspension and EPB issues for the next few years
Oli
