ChobeG
06-12-2016, 01:29 AM
Hi All,
Just thought i should share an incident that happened as a result of fitting the SPC control arms. This may not be a design fault, but perhaps something that people need to be careful of when lowering a B8 and using the aftermarket Control Arms to adjust camber.
So here's what happened. I was experiencing excessive wear on the inner part of my tires after lowering it. So i purchased the SPC control arms to rectify the negative camber. My car was sitting on a negative camber reading of -01.50' and the suspension guys that adjusted the car brought down to -1.00'. The car now drives awesomely well i should say, Toe is now +0.7mm on both sides and Caster is +3.20'. It handles very well now like it's on rails!.. finally after all the suspension work!.
However in the process of a spirited run through the hills i went over a very hard bump mid corner and my front right suspension made a thumping noise... immediately my dash lit up like a Christmas tree with all sorts of flashing warnings; TPMS failure, ABS Failure, Ebrake failure, Electronic Diff failure, Traction control along with Auto stop/start and my parking sensors all gone!... just about every system in the car with a failure... HOLY F#@k i thought!... Having heard the thump, i drove the car back home with a bit of care, raised the car once in the garage and removed both of my front wheels to inspect. It didn't take long before i noticed what had happened. One of the control arms had hit the tower, leaving clear scuff marks on the edge of the control arm and cut clean a cable that runs right above it.. Strange place to run cables Audi, but i managed to fix it with a soldering iron and some heat shrink. I have now moved and tucked the wire under the wheel arch trim. So if any of you are running these arms or any aftermarket adjustable arms, please be sure to re-route that visible cable under the tower away from suspension movement, specially if you have made the arms longer through adjustments..see picture below which shows the cable after i removed the clips holding it in place.
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah49/chobeG/IMG_20160611_160934_zpszlgv4c5s.jpg (http://s1377.photobucket.com/user/chobeG/media/IMG_20160611_160934_zpszlgv4c5s.jpg.html)
After a driving the car for a day and a few key cycles all warnings have gone away by themselves. Thankfully.
Just thought i should share an incident that happened as a result of fitting the SPC control arms. This may not be a design fault, but perhaps something that people need to be careful of when lowering a B8 and using the aftermarket Control Arms to adjust camber.
So here's what happened. I was experiencing excessive wear on the inner part of my tires after lowering it. So i purchased the SPC control arms to rectify the negative camber. My car was sitting on a negative camber reading of -01.50' and the suspension guys that adjusted the car brought down to -1.00'. The car now drives awesomely well i should say, Toe is now +0.7mm on both sides and Caster is +3.20'. It handles very well now like it's on rails!.. finally after all the suspension work!.
However in the process of a spirited run through the hills i went over a very hard bump mid corner and my front right suspension made a thumping noise... immediately my dash lit up like a Christmas tree with all sorts of flashing warnings; TPMS failure, ABS Failure, Ebrake failure, Electronic Diff failure, Traction control along with Auto stop/start and my parking sensors all gone!... just about every system in the car with a failure... HOLY F#@k i thought!... Having heard the thump, i drove the car back home with a bit of care, raised the car once in the garage and removed both of my front wheels to inspect. It didn't take long before i noticed what had happened. One of the control arms had hit the tower, leaving clear scuff marks on the edge of the control arm and cut clean a cable that runs right above it.. Strange place to run cables Audi, but i managed to fix it with a soldering iron and some heat shrink. I have now moved and tucked the wire under the wheel arch trim. So if any of you are running these arms or any aftermarket adjustable arms, please be sure to re-route that visible cable under the tower away from suspension movement, specially if you have made the arms longer through adjustments..see picture below which shows the cable after i removed the clips holding it in place.
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah49/chobeG/IMG_20160611_160934_zpszlgv4c5s.jpg (http://s1377.photobucket.com/user/chobeG/media/IMG_20160611_160934_zpszlgv4c5s.jpg.html)
After a driving the car for a day and a few key cycles all warnings have gone away by themselves. Thankfully.