I have had my 2001 A4 Quattro for 1 month and twice it has came skidding to a stop and I don't know why. I have driven a car where a ball joint has failed and know what that feels like but here is the situation: Both times I was driving about 30 MPH when out of nowhere without having the brakes applied the car suddenly felt like the front right wheel either locked or twisted and the wheel skidded and made horrble noise on top of that. The car dove to the right obviously and felt like it dropped 6 inches in the front. It felt just like a ball joint snapping but after the car stopped I was able to drive it just fine to wherever I was going. I am puzzled, I removed the wheel and checked for anything broken or loose and saw nothing obvious. Also that right front wheel has bad tire wear on the outside treads. Any thoughts???

 

i say check again... for something extremely dangerous to happen like that, something has got to be broken.

 

Any CEL's or other idiot lights come on when this happens? This screams ABS to me, have you scanned your ABS module with Vag COM to make sure its working properly?

 

No lights come on at all

 

bet the ****** before you ripped out the lights behind abs. but the grinding sounds like the abs sensor hitting the hub. pop the wheel off and pull the sensor out it will be obvious if thats the problem.

 

The lights on the instrument panel work fine but no ABS showing when the issue happens. I removed both front wheels and checked for anything broken and there was absolutely nothing. I am waiting for one of my buddies to return my scanner to see if there is an ABS issue but what I am leaning toward is a brake caliper seizing up and because of that the ABS kicking in. That would explain the entire issue. Is that something that anyone else has seen and is it feasible that this may be the problem?

 

Its definitely feasible, I've read a few threads about seized calipers. Doesn't make any sense though. If you had a seized caliper it would stay seized. That's not the sort of thing that just comes and goes. An OBDII scanner would be good, VAG COM would be better, I bet there's something shady going on with your ABS module or one of the wheel speed sensors.