Full suspension kits £94 - False economy?

[aerotec]

Hi all,

My 2000 A4 Avant needs an upper front arm, track rod end and an advisory on a split ball joint dust cover.

On checking out parts I see you can buy complete suspension kits for around £94-120 on eBay.

SUSPENSION KIT FRONT BALL JOINT+CONNECTING ROD+END AUDI A4(8D2 B5)+AVANT(8D5 B5) | eBay

Does anyone have any experience of these kits? Would it be a false economy to just jack up the car and replace the entire suspension? I last had some suspension links replaced around 5 years ago so non of them are new and would benefit from being changed. I only do 4-6k miles a year so if these kits get me through 3 or 4 MOTs I would be happy.

I do prefer Lemforder but that would be neared £500 for a full set!

Thoughts...??

[Crasher]

They are trying to imply that kit is made in Germany, it simply can't be as a Febi (part number 21502) kit would be three to four times that. Those bits have to be Chinese as they won't be paying any more than around £50 to buy the kit in. Google

[neilos100]

Hehe...one of the reviewers who actually bought the same part says that it was'scrap'....cheap, but scrap!
Dont do it...

I actually think the company name, ECD, stands for Exclusively Chinese Dross...

[Cavanmick]

I have seen the cheap kits with play in ball joints after a weeks use, buy the ones you need in a good brand such as febi or lemforder.

Mick

[Rob69]

A cheap ball joint could be a killer that will put you in the ditch, It happened to a pal of mine years ago when we were kids with first cars, lower ball joint broke, car shot across the opposite carriageway into trees, lucky to be alive, don't scrimp on brakes or susp parts !!!

[zollaf]

it is a nice advert though, with the spinning pictures and all that.

[Doctle Odd]

If you leave it with a mechanic a good one can change everything in 7 hours. So you'd have to pay 4 times the cost of the parts to have them fitted and the same again in a month to have them redone.

[green A8]

At risk of repeating myself and becoming a bore, do not buy that or any other set of cheap chinese rubbish. I know they're on ebay at stupid money, that's because they're low quality junk. As pretty much everyone has stated they are just not worth buying, let alone fitting.

Save your pennies and go get a set of Meyle Febi or Lemforder arms and drop links.The Meyle set has a 4 year warranty an is the only type of arms I'll fit to any of the family Audis. Never had a Meyle arm fail or get commented on at the MOT

A friend of mines Wife who runs a B6 1.9TDi Sport had an advisory on the MOT for wear in the ball joint of the lower rear O/S arm. She left the repair for six months because money was tight ect. She refused to buy a quality replacement part, so I refused to fit it for her! So she got one of these cheap arms off ebay and got a local garage to fit it for her (against the advice of the mechanic who did the job). Six months later the Audi failed it's MOT on wait for it 'Excessive play in the lower rear O/S arm ball joint...Dangerous!' That particular car now has a full set of Meyle supension arms and drop links fitted, it's on it's third MOT pass with no further suspension related problems.

And the moral of the story is. Buy cheap, Buy twice.

[zollaf]

you can repeat yourself and be as boring as you like mr green a8, but still people won't get it and carry on buying these cheap and dangerous parts from china. i get it though and don't think you are a bore. but then i would also buy a car from you, even a shed of an old afn powered a4.

[green A8]

Why thank you Sir. I consider that a great compliment. I've been playing with a shed of an old AFN powered A4 Avant this very morning. I had to fit a new brake light bulb, biggest job I've done on a B5 this month! Good news it flew through it's MOT on Monday 09/02 with 173,001 miles on the clock. It runs a full set of Meyle arms now on their fourth MOT. They've done 48,000 miles since I fitted 'em. My cousin, who runs the car wonders if we should replace the full set as 'life expired components'. What do you chaps think? It would be interesting to see what if any wear is present in these arms now that the warranty has (just) expired.

It royally ticks me off how many people beat a track to my door hoping I'll fix up their MOT failure for free then present me with a box full of cheap parts that are just not worth putting a spanner on! Most get a bit of verbal abuse that would never make it through this forums swear checker (and quite right too!) and then go away quickly. I have been insisting on either quality of OEM parts for years now, but some folk never get the message, but then, they don't get my help either.