Split rear anti roll bar

[nutter1980]

Hi people, My A4 is in today for its recall on the clutch cover plate and the plenum chamber. They just called today to advise that my Rear anti roll bar has split, and wanted £280 to fix the fault, they said it could be done in 1 hour.

I wont pay audi prices, anyone know how much this will cost in the read world?

[zxrmatt]

£73.85 + VAT for parts and 1 hours labour at say £40.

[summerisle]

Hi ,

When I bought my Audi A4 last month which has a FSH I checked with Finchley Audi the last service. They told me the Anti Roll bar had split, though the seller hadn't mentioned this. So I took it up with the seller and he told me he had it checked by an independent who said it was fine and I took his word for it. Once I had the car I had the cambelt done and
I actually got the mechanic (Swifts in Sheffield, Audi independent) to show me the rear anti roll bar. It definitely wasn't split and didnt need replacing.

Make of that what you will and perhaps get it checked elsewhere.

Nick.

[nutter1980]

Hi ,

When I bought my Audi A4 last month which has a FSH I checked with Finchley Audi the last service. They told me the Anti Roll bar had split, though the seller hadn't mentioned this. So I took it up with the seller and he told me he had it checked by an independent who said it was fine and I took his word for it. Once I had the car I had the cambelt done and
I actually got the mechanic (Swifts in Sheffield, Audi independent) to show me the rear anti roll bar. It definitely wasn't split and didnt need replacing.

Make of that what you will and perhaps get it checked elsewhere.

Nick.

Thanks Nick, I got it checked by an idependent garage as soon as I collected the car from Audi. He advised me that he couldnt see anything wrong with the Anti Roll Bar, He mentioned that Audi were either trying to get some money out of me as they had spent a day on my car FOC fixing a recall, or they were aware of common sign the Anti roll bar was about to fail. I might take it to another garage to get it inspected.

Anyone else had this problem before?:confused:

[Neil_Sc]

Time to upgrade to an RS4 rear anti roll bar.

Did this on mine and fitted new bushes, piece of cake, cost about £80 in parts, took about half an hour to fit it.

[nutter1980]

Time to upgrade to an RS4 rear anti roll bar.

Did this on mine and fitted new bushes, piece of cake, cost about £80 in parts, took about half an hour to fit it.

Hi Neil , whats the difference or advantage in fitting an Rs4 anti roll bar?

[Neil_Sc]

I noticed slightly less body roll, this was with coilovers installed too however, without you'll probably notice a bigger improvement with standard suspension.

A thread on tyresmoke in the A4 section lists the parts required, a page at the end of the thread gives the correct part numbers for the bushes and others bits, if searching doesn't find it, click through the pages until it appears.

[Crasher]

A lot of these recalls are just a sneaky way of getting more work; it isn't the first time, or the last. One I remember well was the Golf 2 heater matrix recall; they used that to get people back in with older Golf’s.

[willster]

Exactly the same happened to me! Car in Audi having plenum chamber re-call done ,they claimed i needed a replacement Rear Anti Roll Bar, few weeks later my car was in at an indipendant and he said it was fine just needed new bushes. Ive complained directly to Audi uk ,not heard anything back yet.

[nutter1980]

Just heard off a friend, he just had the plenum chamber recall and clutch cover plate recall.

And guess what, You need a new anti roll bar sir....£218...

What are audi doing ?

[Marco34]

Does anybody know what they do to the plenum chamber? I've already had the problem and simply unblocked the drain hole. I check every now and then to make sure it's clear. All seems fine. I'd rather not have the ******** looking for not existant faults on my car :zx11:

[Crasher]

The anti roll bars are prone to problems.

[nutter1980]

Crasher, When you see they are prone to problems, What sort of problems?

I like my car to be in tip top condition, plus driving around my 6 week old baby I hate to think there was somthing dangerous, Audi must know somthing is wrong they dont seem to me like a company who would give false information.

I think I will have a chat with the mechanic when I get my MAF connector fixed.

[Crasher]

There are three different designs of commonly used ARB inner mounting on VAG cars. Some are plain bars that run in rubber bushes and these bushes wear and rattle, the non 4-M Golf 4 is a good example. The other design is the same but has side travel limiting collars which corrode and fall off plus they also wear and rattle in the same way as the other type. The other design has the collar but also a plastic bearing sleeve, typical examples being the 9N Polo and Octavia VRS/Golf 4-M, and these sleeves split due to water getting in and this makes a horrid noise. In all cases it is difficult to imagine a situation where this could become dangerous unless the bar actually fractured clean though, which I can’t remember ever seeing except on the old air cooled Bugs and Buses.

[nickynibbles]

The roll bar is a thick bar of metal and simply cant actually break, as Crasher has eluded to its the bushes/mountings which are liable to wear & corrode, but unless your booting the nuts off your car round corners your unlikely to actually have any problems whilst driving the car. I had my rarb changed on its last service because the bushes were worn, they even took me under the car to show me without being asked, but then that was at a VAG specialist & not a main dealer! Dont believe for a second if Audi tell you your rarb is broken, if they do ask to be shown what they're talking about then kick up a fuss for being told a load of nonsense!!

[willster]

just replaced my Rear anti-roll bar on my A4 2.5tdi ,it was really easy ,cant believe Audi wanted £280 to do it. They were right though in the end the bar did need replacing ,it wasnt so much the metal bar but the plastic mountings that the rubber bush sits over the top,these had badly cracked. i took a few pics while i did it and am going to compile a 'how to' guide to post, the bar was £57.47 and bushes were £5.22 for both (including VAT on bar and bushes) and it took me an hour! dont let Audi rip you off.

[Hooper]

This all sounds very familiar, just had my 04 plate 2.5Tdi Quattro Avant (40k FSH) serviced at Bromley Audi and guess what? New rear anti-roll bar and that other old favourite, windscreen wiper! Total bill, £650! Thankfully my company pay for servicing but had it been me there would have been a news worthy incident at service reception! Wouldn't mind but the handling is poor and the rear end wallows about all over the place.