i recently bought an audi a4 1.8t avant quattro. and while driving it i noticed that there was an extremely delayed response on the steering.... my audi a4 v6 didnt have this issue. do you guys know if its something that has been reported accross all of the B5 audis or is this just my car. also if it is then do u guys know what could fix the issue. i read the report from the audi dealership and they want to replace the entire front end. and i aint havin that.

 

hmmm....control arms, tie rod ends, balance your wheels and get an 4 wheel alignment....

you can buy a control arm kit for under 300$ on eBay from fcpgroton it should bome with tie rod ends as well....

get all wheels balanced should be about 50$ or less

and then take it to the stealership and for $90 or so they can do an 4 wheel alignment...

also, as a side note....when I first bought the car the stering wheel took some effort to turn...I ended up being extremely low on P/s fluid, when i filled it back to the full line steering became effortless

 

+ 1 to everything quattroa4 said... i got an upper control arm kit with tie rod ends on ebay for around 140 shipped i think

 

Probably bad tie rod ends if you have wondering. Control arms will start to make noise when they go bad and you'll just get general loseness in front end feel after while. Any $300 control arm set found on ebay is promised to be china no name crap almost gauranteed to fail after about a year if they last that long. Pay attention to their waranty terms. Anything that says "returns accepted no questions asked!" and is followed up by "returns only accepted if product is in new/uninstalled condition in original packaging" is BS. Thats the kind of terms almost all ebay brand parts have. Complete BS. Stick with a proven company like Meyle, Febi, etc. for about $150 more. The main thing is these cheapest of the cheap china ebay part companies do not take much care in machining, and also the boots that they use to protect ball joints are a joke. They litteraly eat themselves. Too many people with poor experiences to go that route imo. Of course there will be some to testify that they have gone 1yr or more with no problems with the use of such parts, but don't count on their luck.

 

aw you make me feel like such a bad audi owner .... after driving my car for awhile with the control arms and tie rod ends i got i havent noticed any problems and the boots and all are fine even after sitting outside for almost 9 months... maybe i got lucky

 

Hopefuly yours last a long time. Only time will tell. It's just not something I'd personaly recommend to anyone based on numerous stories I've read about before.

 

I bought my upper control arms from fcpgroton a year ago (off of ebay)...they still look new and the car feels great....last week I bought and installed the lowers as well...I am hoping to get somewhere between 2 and 5 years out of them...only time will tell....in a year I'll give you guys an update...lol

 

so an update it was the tie rod ends on my car. lol thanks for the input guys.

 

Damn, it's about time!