Rear suspension mount corroded

wideboybloke

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A4 Avant, 4 years old, annual service and 2nd MOT, 25,500 miles. The technician gives you a headcam rundown on his findings which I find useful as I have no means of getting under the car. To my surprise he identified corrosion on one of the rear suspension mountings and marked it as an advisory on the MOT results. I tried to upload photos of the affected side and the ‘good’ side but my photos are apparently too big to upload so I’ll do that later when I’ve figured out how to make them smaller.

Has anybody else experienced this? I’m rather disappointed given that the car is only 4 years old and hasn’t covered a great mileage. I can only imagine it’s a peculiarity of my particular car and plain bad luck. To fix it they quoted £198 inc vat, but as it’s an advisory at this stage I decided to pass on it this time round. I may no longer have the car when the next MOT is due, although I appreciate that the MOT findings are a matter of public record so it’s not something that will go unnoticed to anybody who does their homework.

I would normally have moved the car on by now, but I really like this one so I have decided to keep it for a further year with an extended warranty.
 
Managed to compress the photo of the affected side. Still persevering with the photo of the ‘good’ side
 

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Mine are the same. I started a thread on this a few months ago. When my car was was about 36 months old. Both mine are the same.

I have just been in the garage and had the video inspection back. It wasn’t mentioned at all.


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Mine are the same. I started a thread on this a few months ago. When my car was was about 36 months old. Both mine are the same.

I have just been in the garage and had the video inspection back. It wasn’t mentioned at all.


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That’s interesting. No explanation was offered as to why it was highlighted as an advisory, so did I perhaps have an over-cautious MOT examiner - or, more cynically, an over-enthusiastic business developer? I’ll have a look at your earlier post.
 
That’s interesting. No explanation was offered as to why it was highlighted as an advisory, so did I perhaps have an over-cautious MOT examiner - or, more cynically, an over-enthusiastic business developer? I’ll have a look at your earlier post.

Sorry I didn’t mean 36 I meant 30 months old.


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This definitely must be a component failure or design fault. My 41 months old A4 saloon had the same faults on both rear spring mount at inspection.
This must be a component or design fault. My A4 saloon 41 months at 35000 miles had the same defect at inspection. Audi must know about these defects in their cars
 

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Are people being flagged up for these?
Like I said earlier, when Audi done my walkthrough it was never mentioned.


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Are people being flagged up for these?
Like I said earlier, when Audi done my walkthrough it was never mentioned.


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Not all Audi stealers are born the same. Some are genuinely knowledgable, most are a waste of time and more importantly money.


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I was also informed of this when car was under 3 years old by Audi main dealer they said very minor wear and when it was mot'd there was no mention of it!
 
I was also informed of this when car was under 3 years old by Audi main dealer they said very minor wear and when it was mot'd there was no mention of it!
Was the corrosion on yours as bad as in the photos above?
 
They never showed me a picture just mentioned it. But when it had its mot 6 months later nothing was said then.
 
They never showed me a picture just mentioned it. But when it had its mot 6 months later nothing was said then.
When I had my first MOT in January nothing was mentioned only to have both mounts corroded at the inspection and oil change in July
 
UPDATE
I still have the car (long story). When it came to service and MOT time this year (a month ago) my usual dealer, the one who serviced and MOT’d it last year, was unable to supply a loan car so the Audi central booking system suggested using another fairly local dealer who did have a loaner for the day I wanted the service and MOT. I’ve been with the original dealer for 11 years and always been fairly happy with the service, so I hesitated but thought ‘why not?’
It was a good experience with the new dealer. Predictably, the worn rear spring mount was drawn to my attention as something to be aware of, but no more than that. However, as I am keeping the car for the foreseeable future, I want to take out an All-in Plan and the service assistant informed me that in order to qualify for the All-in Plan the rear spring mount would need to be replaced. Before I could say any more, she volunteered that the repair would almost certainly be covered by my extended warranty, but that she would need to seek authorisation from Audi UK. This morning she rang to tell me that the repair has been authorised so we booked my car in there and then to have the work carried out.
I am naturally delighted that the work will be carried out under warranty, but at the same time I am angry that I could have paid £198 to have it done last year following the advice of my usual dealer. I suspect that back then, somebody couldn’t be @rsed to seek authorisation, so I was fobbed off. A lesson there, I think.
 
The rear spring seat rubber is well document on B8 forum too. Mileage is no indication of the duration of these components. The rubber has an alloy or steel insert, water, road salt, whatever effects it and they fail after 3 years or so. I did them on my Allroad last year and they were an utter pain to replace.

Not sure if the fact you were signing up to an extended warranty plan had any bearing on their decision, good will and all, but it's £30 part and the rest is labour.
 
Just had mine done at 69,000 miles and 5 years old. Looks like the A4’s Achilles heel
 
£277.95 inc. vat from an Independent Audi Specialist
 
Yeah, I felt I was getting pumped too however, they were less than £500 for programming and calibrating a replacement ADAS camera when the dealer wanted £1200. Swings and roundabouts
 
Prices sound about right when my dealer was proposing to charge £198 (plus AT, I think) in August 2020
 
@wideboybloke i had the same issue, my post here:-

Got absolutely no where with Audi CS but clearly this is a common fault