Front strut leak, repairable or...?
 

Lately I've noticed the front left of the car is getting lower within a few hours. After locating the leak, I was wondering if its repairable or do I need to get a new strut? I think I've seen somewhere that there is available some kind of repair kit? The car has Sport Suspension.

The leak is where I've indicated bubbles on the picture below. May think it could be the air bag internally?

https://neshaug.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/leak.jpg

Quite possibly the bag itself. I have seen a video where it was replaced although it will have to be a 3rd party part as Audi only sell a complete strut at £1000+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfhuv5gpWIw&t=274s

Thanks for the feedback, is there any 3. party suppliers making repair kits for the struts?

Nightowl, i've just been through this process.

My suspension was dropping overnight and the compressor was working hard to get it up to level when driving. We diagnosed leaking struts on both front sides. I'd looked at various options including Aerosus and also replacing the bags. TBH, the latter felt like a cheap out, short term option so I went with RMT based out of Florida.

https://rebuildmastertech.com/audi/a...rt-suspension/

They offered me two rebuilt cores for a total of USD$589. The deal is that you pay a deposit of USD$300 for cores and they refund this to you when you return yours back to them. Obviously you can decide not to return them and your other option is to remove yours and send to them.

It took them a day to source the cores and from placing the order to receiving a shipping advice note it took 5 days.

They're currently being fitted as I write. I'll let you know here if there's anything untoward but overall my experience with RMT was excellent.....

I've also taken the opportunity to replace all of the suspension arms with TRW parts so looking forward to seeing how it ends up ride wise.

As I'm replacing only on one side, I'm a bit reluctant to get a new shock as they normally should be replaced in pairs. Don't knowing the mileage, I think it could be better to get the air bag only this time. I've seen a couple, although it could be the same producer, on eBay from China.

Here and here.

No worries....

The replacement air bag came about a week ago and I've only got time to do the job today. Nothing difficult, just to take it apart and then put it all together again with the the new air bag. Had a short test drive after it was all done and no fault codes, and the ride was as good as before.

Excellent! Where did you buy the bag from in the end?

I bought it from eBay and it came with the upper and lower o-ring. Couple of things the keep in mind doing this. You would need a 41mm pipe, and a deep/long 18mm pipe. And you would have to cut the cable going to the shock, or you may be able to disconnect the cables from the connection too as it wont be able to in the hole where the rod goes through the air bag. I just cut the cable and soldered it back together in the end.

Thanks

As mentioned above, I got an replacement air bag and the funny thing is that it was leaking too. :ROFL:

https://neshaug.files.wordpress.com/...trut-leak2.jpg

I know there is "a million" treads about leaks in the suspension online, and it probably has been covered before, but as I haven't had any trouble earlier I haven't payed much attention to them.

This leak was very much identical with the one I had initially. That made me think that it's probably not the air bag itself that is leaking. After closer inspection of the old air bag, confirmed that the rubber air bag didn't reach as high as the fitting of the air valve. Out of curiosity, I removed the air valve on my old one and cleaned it and the housing of corrosion and put it back on the car. Unfortunately it was still leaking a little bit, so I then took off the air valve from the new one and put on the old one, and now there is no leak! I can imaging that the corrosion between the aluminium housing and the valve may have bent the valve out of shape, combined with old o-ring, have caused the leak in the first place.

The conclusion of my limited inspection is the if there is a leak around the air valve, the leak is probably not the air bag, but between the aluminium housing and the valve (like photo above).

If it leaks at the bottom of the chock absorber (arrow at photo below), it is the lower o-ring that is leaking and if it leaks at the very top, it is the top o-ring. If it's on the other hand coming form underneath the dust boot, it is most likely the air bag itself. I also reckon that if it is the rubber air bag that is leaking, the compressor won't have enough power to raise the car suspension to normal position.

https://neshaug.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/leak33.jpg

(Photo borrowed from user Dville over at Audiworld forum)

Anyways, I've ordered a new valve, including the residual pressure valve, to put back on my new air bag, to have it complete and available when the next leak appear... +++

Hiya,

I’ve got the same leak from around the valve on my A8.
How do you remove the valve housing? On the replacement parts it looks obvious that it screws in but on the original valve on the car there doesn’t look like an obvious way to unscrew the body of it from the strut housing. Thanks!

I used one of this and made a groove to use a flat screw driver.

https://external-content.duckduckgo....jpg&f=1&nofb=1