Snapped KW tie bar

steve123a

steve123a

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I had the misfortune of my Tie bar snapping... leaving me stranded! Luckily though it went whilst I was reversing up a driveway! but the whole rear of the passenger side of the car collapsed and the drive shaft popped out of the diff. It took 3 hours and lots of hard work to get the car on a low loader!
Out of interest has anyone else had this happen? I have been informed by the garage that hopefully it should only be the tie bars either side and the drop links replacing, and the diff refilling with oil and driveshaft put back in place!
I have only had these on the car just over a year or so and done about 12-14k on them, they were all fitted when I had my bilsteins put on the car and all correctly 4 wheel aligned. Where do I stand with this as surely KW should be liable for replacing them, plus the additional costs for the damage??? Does anyone have any advice? I would really appreciate your help!

Thanks Steve
 
they won't like that as its damaging to their reputation,meant to be a high standard.
I would contact them directly
 
I had this happen on my audi ones, it was actually a recall aswell for this, but mine were already recalled so strange it snapped on the newer ones aswell, but mine actually broke the bearing cage in the rear diff, so check this mate cause they replaced the arm & didnt spot the bearing cage damage & then on way home driving kept hearing knocking, needless to say was on back of loader fairly quickly when I took the rear shaft cover of & bearings fell out, lol

KW would only be responsible if it snapped within warranty officially, but no harm in ringing them & saying this happened & you're very annoyed given the quality of the products, blag blag blag & they will probably give you at least a replacement arm, didnt need to do both though, but I did however find a brand new set on ebay some time later & while was in having cambelt etc done asked they swapped the whole rears over given was £50 for whole set new, where as audi were very expensive
 
steve123a said:
I had the misfortune of my Tie bar snapping... leaving me stranded! Luckily though it went whilst I was reversing up a driveway! but the whole rear of the passenger side of the car collapsed and the drive shaft popped out of the diff. It took 3 hours and lots of hard work to get the car on a low loader!
Out of interest has anyone else had this happen? I have been informed by the garage that hopefully it should only be the tie bars either side and the drop links replacing, and the diff refilling with oil and driveshaft put back in place!
I have only had these on the car just over a year or so and done about 12-14k on them, they were all fitted when I had my bilsteins put on the car and all correctly 4 wheel aligned. Where do I stand with this as surely KW should be liable for replacing them, plus the additional costs for the damage??? Does anyone have any advice? I would really appreciate your help!

Thanks Steve
Click to expand...

Mine did. The adjuster part snapped and they were only a month old! The adjuster looked to have had a flaw in its casting, but i never trusted them again and despite being supplied with new under warranty, I fitted jabbasport ones.
 
Yeah mine has snapped right on the adjustment bolt, I have taken some pics and the garage are keeping the parts which I will send over to KW ad see how I get on. Thanks for all your responses and advice!
 
Humm... bit concerning... just fitted a set of these... out of interest, did you fit them to the top or the bottom??

<tuffty/>
 
it would not make a difference would it or would top mean more extended wear?
 
Fitted to the bottom, the force would be pulling on the adjustable joint, fitted to the top the force would be pushing, I am no engineer but I am thinking it may generate less stress to the tie bar when fitted to the top?

Just a thought..

<tuffty/>
 
I had an FK Coilover snap in half on my old car, took over 6 weeks go get a new one out of FK.

Hopefully you have better luck with KW !
 
tufftybloke said:
Fitted to the bottom, the force would be pulling on the adjustable joint, fitted to the top the force would be pushing, I am no engineer but I am thinking it may generate less stress to the tie bar when fitted to the top?

Just a thought..

<tuffty/>
Click to expand...

I thought the opposite mmmm
 
The driver side KW tie bars on my car has bent at the adjusting bolt. A friend of mine is using the car at the moment and believes this happened in the snow a while back. He was parking up on the pavement at his house and the rear of the car slipped off, the angle and lateral force on the bar must have been to great, reading this it appears he was luck that it didn't snap.

I had bought them from DPM in a group buy on here and so called him up to see a) if KW sell the adjuster bolt as a spare part, the don't. B) is KW would sell the bars as singles, he checked with KW UK, who then checked with KW german, resulting answer was no.

So my friend will be forking out for a new set. Not to good to here that a few others have had the bolts on these fail.
 
How old are the bars?

When do you get license back?
 
NHN,

Bars have been on the car less than a year.

As for my license, the short answer is I was being silly,
to expand on that though, not long after getting the car I was taking some uni mates for a quick spin. Got careless and didn't keep my eye out for police.
Got clocked at 103mph and was unfortunate enough that there was a people carrier in the outside lane doing less than 70mph on a sweeping corner. At the speed I was doing it would have been more of a danger to slam on the anchors (didn't have the brembo's on the car at the time or I might have thought about it) so I undertook.

The judge didn't look kindly on my age, type of car, excessive speed and the under taking. I got a **** pour lawyer who I'm pretty sure realise it was a lost case and didn't really try very hard to get the charge reduced.
The police statement was also written in a way that was very damming of my actions.

Outcome, charged with dangerous driving and disqualified for 18 months.

on the bright side though I'm saving some money and getting nice a fit, so it's not so bad.

What did you do Mr. G.

Sorry to OP for going off topic in this post.

Please let me know how you get on with KW as I'm sure my friend would be more than interested in a possible claim for replacement from KW.
 
Shouldn't matter how long they've been fitted to the car. I don't believe a tiebar should EVER fail like that. I think it should've been designed/manufactured to withstand long term fatigue. This has put me off ever going near KW for anything.

I have Forge tiebars on my car, and have had them on for over 5 years now. Just hope they don't show the same problems.
 
If they've been on car for less than a year then thats a warranty issue so should easily be able to be replaced, they're supposed to hold up to the strain, just get hold of seller & claim.
 
Problem I may have is that they have been on the car for longer than a year, but as mentioned above they should be designed to last for a lot longer than that otherwise they are a real danger especially if they fail at high speed!

I am going to be chasing up the people who supplied and fitted them today and shall post what response I get.
 
Just an update regarding these bars, I have spoken to the supplier who has been in direct contact with KW UK, they requested I sent over original receipts ( these were fitted to the car 18 months ago ), photos of the incident and parts, recovery report from AA, invoice for the replacement work carried out. All this has been done over a month ago (been away for a month) and they were sending them on to Germany for the factory to look at and make an assessment! I did chase them up the other day and they have assured me that they are looking in to it, so it seems that a warranty issue may be over turned for safety concerns especially if these snap at high speed on the motorway.

Fingers crossed they will pull their finger and give me some compensation! So far it has cost me £450 to get the car back on the road!
 
Feel sorry for you man. I think im after the Forge ones now. KW Sounds really doddgy!
 
Why not get the Neuspeed ones...Never ever heard word 1 of bad things from any product Neuspeed have to offer...just a thought!
 
Already paid for! Im not too worried, I daresay this is an isolated incident.
 
^^ i hope so ^^

Does anyone know of anyway to reduce the likely hood of this ocuring, either at time of fitment or via adjustment?
 
I have only heard of a few people this has happened to, so hopefully it was just a faulty one! Although I will be leaving them standard Audi for now!
 
Arent the Neuspeed ones a fair bit more pricey?
Im sure its not happend to many people. Keep up updated on the outcome.
 
Ive heard of a few cases but this is the only reported one Ive seen.
 
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