A4 B8 Dynamik Handling

[wolfie138]

Well, i'm still not happy w/ my car. she's a 2011 2.0 TfSI quattro, and for a while the back end has seemed very spongy. I thought it was a tyre issue, as one kept losing pressure, so eventually over the course of month i got new tyres and then got refurbed alloys [which were the cure]. She still wasn't right. In April, i took her in and there was a leaky shocker on the rear nearside, after that she seemed good, she definitely handled far better, but now she's back to spongy and possibly worse than before.

Took her in for a check the other week, as i'd also had the parking brake warning come on [and then go off a day later, never to return...yet...] so i got them to check the suspension. And they found....nothing. I had a chat w/ the head tech and went out w/ him for a spin, he thought there was nothing beyond my steering wheel being a bit off and suggesting a wheel alignment.

So...any thoughts? I'm 1000% positive SOMETHING isn't right, she definitely has little grip in the back now, tyres all have >6mm on them [Mich PS4s] but if a dealership can't find an excuse for me to hoy money at them, i'm beginning to doubt my sanity! :-D

TIA

 

[Dusty Des]

Had problems with my 2015 quattro. Wouldn't hold straight line back felt floaty. Several trips to Audi. New tyres 4 wheel alignment suspention checks etc, etc. Then they did a stearing software update and now sorted.

Good luck

 

[Robert997]

I realise this is a belated reply, but OP I've been in your position before with, at the time, my old Porsche 911. When you know something isn't right with the handling, I'd had it from new and knew it had gone off. Obviously the technicians at the dealership are no help here - oh yes it's fine. We all appreciate they have a challenge and will not drive as hard and as fast as you can drive down a familiar road.
The solution at the time was 4 new dampers and 4 wheel alignment, nearly £2k back then as I had PASM adaptive dampers.

Now I know better.

There are some rare specialists, the one I've worked with is Centre Gravity in Atherstone. They are dedicated solely to chassis set-up and alignment, and in the Porsche world those cars are so sensitive to alignment it makes a huge difference. That was more than 10 years ago, and since then I've had every car aligned by CG. It's expensive, around £350 each time, but utterly worth it. Of course they've done my S3 as well. You get half-day of road testing and alignment and the ability to tweak handling to improve feel, reduce understeer or absolutely anything you want.

They also have a damper-testing machine, which does as it suggests and is able to test the performance of dampers whilst they're still on the car, quite a specialist installation.

From your description it could be alignment or damper related, and there are so few places that can actually test those.
Hopefully by now you're sorted, if not they might be worth a call if you're local, or they might be able to direct you further to somewhere nearer.
Best of luck.