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Oh no.......


Lynas
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Just had Paul from Service dept on phone.

My rear anti roll bar is cracked.

What would the effects of this be on handling? How would it happen? Just been quoted £187.70 (inc discount) to have it replaced... Ouch.

Or, RS4 Anti Rollbar time?

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My anti roll bar was cracked too. The paint cracks and water gets in, corrodes and cracks the bar. It's definately time to fit the RS4 anti roll bar (as it's about the same price) and he's totally ripping you off at that price. It takes about half an hour to fit (tops) and the bar delivered from VAGParts is only £87.50, and £12 of that was delivery. Tell him to stop trying to pull your pants down. If he's given you discount on that I'd love to know what the original amount was!

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Dan - not the brackets as all the brackets are the same regardless of car. But all the necessary bolts etc, yes.

Lynas - Before I changed the bar I noticed that the car seemed to "skip" at the back end when I was really heavily cornering, i.e. heavy round roundabouts. I'm talking much heavier than you can without quattro. However I only owned the car for 7 weeks before changing the bar, so I couldn't give you a definitive answer as I didn't experience the car without quattro before the bar was cracked.

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If it didn't make any difference they would have used the 20mm on the RS4. I'm not expecting it to be a massive difference but that's perfect for me. I want to tweak it and not change the handling massively. wink.gif

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[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

...or of course you could make me an offer for my S4 one (20mm) as I'm about to upgrade to an RS4 one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you think an extra 2mm is going to make a pronounced difference?

[/ QUOTE ]

A 22mm diameter roll bar has 50% more cross sectional area than an 18mm one or 21% more than a 20mm one 169144-ok.gif

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And before it gets too metallurgical, a simple explanation on Roll Bars courtesy of: http://www.autosportz.com/article_suspension.htm

Anti-Roll Bars (Sway Bars/Stabilizers)

No, these aren't the things that are bolted inside the car in case you turn it over - those are rollover cages. Anti-roll bars do precisely what their name implies - they combat the roll of a car on it's suspension as it corners. They're also known as sway-bars or anti-sway-bars. Almost all cars have them fitted as standard, and all have scope for improvement. From the factory they are biased towards ride comfort. Stiffer aftermarket items will increase the roadholding but you'll get reduced comfort because of it. It's a catch-22 situation. Fiddling with your roll stiffness distribution can make a car uncomfortable to ride in and extremely hard to handle if you get it wrong. The anti-roll bar is usually connected to the front, lower edge of the bottom suspension joint. It passes through two pivot points under the chassis, usually on the subframe and is attached to the same point on the opposite suspension setup. Effectively, it joins the bottom of the suspension parts together.

When you head into a corner, the car begins to roll out of the corner. For example, if you're cornering to the left, the car body rolls to the right. In doing this, it's compressing the suspension on the right hand side. With a good anti-roll bar, as the lower part of the suspension moves upward relative to the car chassis, it transfers some of that movement to the same component on the other side. In effect, it tries to lift the left suspension component by the same amount. Because this isn't physically possible, the left suspension effectively becomes a fixed point and the anti-roll bar twists along its length because the other end is effectively anchored in place. It's this twisting that provides the resistance to the suspension movement.

You can buy cars with active anti-roll technology now. These sense the roll of the car into a corner and deflate the relevant suspension leg accordingly by pumping fluid in and out of the shock absorber. It's a high-tech, super expensive version of the good old mechanical anti-roll bar. You can buy anti-roll bars as an aftermarket addon. They're relatively easy to fit because most cars have anti-roll bars already. Take the old one off and fit the new one. In the case of rear suspension, the fittings will probably already be there even if the anti-roll bar isn't.

Typical anti-roll bar (swaybar) kits include the uprated bar, a set of new mounting clamps with polyurethane bushes, rose joints for the ends which connect to the suspension components, and all the bolts etc that will be needed.

bike.thumb.gif169144-ok.gif

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A cracked anti-roll bar isn't the end of the world mate. I bought my car from another TSNer and found it had a cracked anti-roll bar. And other things that I need to spend money on, such as the centre diff seals as the input seal is leaking. He knew about neither problem and has always spent a stupid amount of money maintaining his car and he was genuinely very surprised when I told him.

Spotting a cracked ARB is an easy job in itself, but the chances of anyone knowing about it are slim IMO. If you've bought it through the Audi Approved used network, fine, hammer them. But if it's an independant/private I don't think you're going to get anywhere, nor do I think you have reason to IMHO.

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Cracked anti rollbar is classed as an MOT failure

All I'm saying is, if he'll pay for it, then it saves me doing so!!!

He paid to have the rear pads changed after I drove it away, to a cost of £133.30 at an Audi dealership.

It's not like I'm trying to con him. The car was sold in this condition!!!

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