Ball joint identification

[graynada]

When I was having my gearbox oil renewed the mechanic brought to my attention excessive play in a lower ball joint. It's not the track rod ends but one fwd of that. I've been looking on vagcat but can't seem to work out which part it is. Does anyone have any clues and how much of a pig it is to change?

[Conan_the_Librarian]

There are ball joints on the end of each of the 4 suspension control arms. The lower rear one can be a bit of a pig as you need to lower the subframe to remove the bolt. The others are reasonable straight forward.

[Architex_mA8tey]

so the front lower arm?
heres the exploded view on a pf car - would be part 7 here
its usually straight forward but mine were a pig as they sit into a steel cup to prevent damage to the hub
and in my case the cup wanted to come out with the end of the arms
If you are doing both sides they should take no more than an hour each even if they are being a pig


Heres the new arm -

and heres the old one in situ -

[graynada]

Thanks for the replys and the pictures, it makes more sense now. I shall add 2 x part 7 to my shopping list and take a look.

[RanjS8]

Just like to add when changing the lower rears for the first time rather than dropping the subframe can just cut the bolt and then just feed the new bolt in from the other side...also the main pain with the arms is getting the pinch bolt out at the top cos usualy seizes in...so when you are refitting use copper slip on the bolts works really great when u come back to it second time....

A good place for control arms is allgermanparts gets it from the oem suppliers at cheaper price...next day delivery tooo!!!!

But I recall that architex managed to get te whole kit quite cheap off eBay a little while back so might be worth while sending him a pm

[ainarssems]

I have bought several kits on German e-bay 2 for A4 and 1 for my S8, cost around £110-130 including delivery depending on exchange rate over the time. Only problem is that they advertise it as fitting for A4, A6, A8 and Passat but 2 of top arms are different on A8 so I had to buy them from Eurocarparts. The first one I bought went on my car, I have done 2 years and about 7000 miles on them, so far no probs. On the second one I bought for a friend tracking rod ball joints gave up in a year and 6000 miles but he drives like mad and never brakes for speedbumps or potholes, rest of the kit is OK and third one is fine as well, at around 1,5 years, not sure about the miles but should be over 10000 as he drives quite a lot.

I think this is one of the kits from the same seller I bought them : http://cgi.ebay.de/Querlenker-Querle...ht_1418wt_1139

And the other arms on eurocarparts are: http://www.eurocarparts.com/ecp/c/Au...38870b15d&SUAR

Now they are @ £45 but when I bought them they were around £25 and I sold the other arms that I did not need from the kit on e-bay.

Buy the way I still have 2 lower arms from one side for sale if somebody is interested as one of the friends I bought a kit for had changed arms on one side not long before so we did not change them and he left them for me. He have since sold a car so not needed. If I will need to change them I will probably buy another kit anyway and change all at the same time so I can sell these. I think front lower is not sided so will fit either side and and rear lower is from the right side.

[Architex_mA8tey]

I got the whole kit for £189 but it was £100 off at the time and has gone back up now. The bottom front arms had gone on at least one side on mine and wouldnt have gone through another MOT and my view was that if I was going to change one or two then I might as well change them all as they had all had the same mileage and wear. I think like Ainar my view is that even if they are not geniuine Audi I would almost rather change them every few years and have nice tight front suspension, and I also feel that these days with all the pot holes and with my (very) low profile tyres on the big boy wheels that if I invested "Audi Money" on the set then I would need a wheelbarrow for the cost but also Im not sure how much more use I would get from them. I'm not doing a huge mileage every year so I'm more likely to get perished rubbers than other failure!
I think those that Ainar posted are a great deal

[ainarssems]

Price have went up a bit since I bought them and postage as well( from 16.9 to 20 EUR).

And you have to keep in mind that 2 of the arms will not fit A8 so you need to by them separately.

When I bought the kit I knew 2 arms are different so I added a note when paying with car details as I thought they advertise for all cars and then put together the kit you need for your car. Received the kit and it was like for A4 A6 and Passat, contacted them about it, they said if You are not happy send it back we will refund You. I explained that I do not want to send a whole kit back but just 2 wrong arms and get the correct ones also mentioned that I gave them my car details with order and should have received correct kit. They said that kit is as is and no alterations are made to it but they can supply needed arms separately and refund for the wrong arms if I send them back . Offered to refund EUR 15.88 each for the wrong ones and offered correct ones for EUR 30.99 each and promised free delivery. I could not be bothered sending back, instead sold the wrong ones on ebay and bought correct ones from Eurocarparts.

So if You decide to buy from them, contact first and explain situation, they might put a correct kit together in first place but it might cost a bit more.

They are also operating several websites one of which is autoteile.cc I bought front shocks for friends A6 (C4) from there. Cost just shy of £40 including delivery for a pair when local garage quoted him £270 +VAT and £110+VAT for the job when he failed MOT. I changed them for him in 40min with a special tool I got from local VW garage for £16, he gave me £50 ordered 2 pizzas bought 2 cases of beer and we made a evening of it.