In this pic, the place where cracks are being found is in the upper left hand portion<br>of the picture....underneath the black sway bar, where the yellow bolt head is<br>found. The cracks are usually found eminating or around this yellow bolt in<br>the thin metal structure that is called a subframe. Again, this is a pic of the<br>rear sway bar attachment area that is "unaffected". My other side, the drivers<br>side is the one I have a problem with (but I don't have a picture of it) Ok...I'm <br>done posting pictures on this subject.<p>I highly recommend that you get this area checked out thoroughly if you put<br>anyones aftermarket sway bars on your A4. This is not just something that<br>will happen with Neuspeed sway bars. I hope you don't have the cracks like<br>Jim Simone, Sharon Levy and I.<p>Steve S.<br>97 2.8QM

Thanks for that image- I know its tough to have to fool with this stuff, but its extremely helpful.<p>My rear is a little different... I think.<br>I have a smaller washer, a green bolt w/ the Audi rings on the head.<br>The washer sets inside a slot... Gives it vertical movement, horizontal is limited by the slot.<br>Does anyone else have a subassy that matches this description?<p>My car is an April 97 build turbo quattro...

I ask, not JUST because I'm paranoid, but also because this is the kind of failure that immediately yells "factory design flaw" to me. The fact that the stock and sport pkg. use the same rear sway bars seems to indicate that Audi may have known this subframe might fail under greater load. I'm just curious if anyone's has failed under the "regular" load.<p>"Mr. Melman is not an engineer," but what do you think? Think the fault lies with Neuspeed?<p>-- David F.<br>1.8TqMS<br>E30 325is

I would not be so quick to fault Neuspeed and their design process. Again, this problem could possibly be found on ANYONE that has aftermarket sway bars, regardless of manufacturer. It is just that the subframe cannot handle a large diameter sway bar...maybe this is why the stock one of my car was only about 11mm.<p>Steve S.<br>97 2.8QM<br>

Steve,<p>This is a great picture. I was under a misunderstanding about which bolt we were talking about. (see my thesis down below) The whole subframe must be flexing in this case! <p>The picture looks offset to me...Can the sway bar short arm rotate into the subframe??? Can the rest of the suspension be loading up that bolt area?

As Steve says, the stock bar is about 11-12 mm whereas the Sport package bar is 16 mm.<p>Truthfully, I wouldn't expect this problem to occur with the factory setups unless there were design flaws or manufacturing defects. Steve Shupe said that he had never seen or heard of the subframe cracking before now, supporting this supposition.<p>Apparently, the Audi engineers did not design the mounting points to handle the stiffer bars, but I guess you can't really blame them for that.<p>Jim

Phil is right, the outer diameter of the stock bar is bigger, but it is hollow and thinner guage and therefore transmits less torque to the subframe. Can someone say "aftermarket subframe?"<p>-Jack

Are you referring to the front or the rear bar?<p>Hmmm, I was going on what Steve said that his rear bar was "about 11 mm." I know that the sport package bar is 16 mm but didn't realize that the stock bar was tubular and larger(?).<p>Now, the front bar is 27mm tubular for the sport package but it's 27 mm solid from Neuspeed. Does it depend on the model year?<p>Jim<p>PS: BTW, Jack, what's your take on all this stuff?

<br>My rear is like yours Jay, with the green bolt and the slot. My A4 is a 98.5 1.8TQ. Somewhere along the line Audi has changed this sub-assemble. This bolt-slot area appears to be the toe adjustment for the rear tires. The washer is a cam that moves the rear link back and forth in the slot in back of the washer-cam. I have broken both of my plastic links and have replaced them with my own steel ones. Now I'm not so sure it was totally the bars fault for the cracking in this area. I think most of the bar people may have replaced their springs too.The lower you go the more the geometry changes.It may not as simple as it appears.

I wonder now, is it the aftermarket swaybar, or us doing an AutoX with the car? Either way, I have NEVER heard of this happening to another car before, even with aftermarket swaybars installed and even that and an AutoX. On my old Street Prepared SCCA RX7 I NEVER had this happen, and I had huge swaybars on it with real still sport springs and Koni's adjusted fairly stiff. I would have thought our Audi's to be built rugged, but this really scares me! And if it IS an inherent problem, then it might need to be looked into for a warranty issue, or as it could be a SAFETY issue, a class action suit????? Boy that won't look good on 60 Minutes!

Sharon Levy, who also has a degree of damage, has a '97 A4 with the stock suspension. The only difference is the swaybar. She has only run in two autocrosses.<p>Sean..<br>97 1.8Tqm<br>

Interesting topic so far! I hope anyone else w. larger sway bars goes and has their vehicle checked. Could be a pretty dangerous situation if it happens at the wrong time. <br>I'll keep you posted regarding the outcome! Gary.

(nt)

Steve, could you re-tell me exactly how you came to learn this in the first place? That way I can see if I am having the same symptoms. And believe me, I sometimes smoke the tires coming out of a turn and could quite possibly be stressing that member.<p>And Gary, make sure to let me know how your car is too!<p><br>Hmmm, but food for thought . . . . what year cars have this happening? Are they only the 97's? Or even up to late 98's???<p>And IF this is becoming a common problem, is there a recall that should be done? Or a BUY-BACK of defective cars????

Time to take your Ridalin ....did you forget?... :-) (just joking, but you do need to take a deep breath and relax)<p>You wrote:<p>"And IF this is becoming a common problem, is there a recall that should be done? Or a BUY-BACK of defective cars???? "<p>As I figure it, the subframe problem was discovered by Jim Simone when he was working on the diagnosis of his weird driving problem. Since Jim, RonA, Sharon, Doug Thom, and countless others go to this same dealership for service (Carlsen Porsche Audi in Palo Alto CA), we were make aware of this issue by super sleuth<br>Steve Shupe (auditech).<p>The existing design for the mounting of the oem non-sport or sport sway bars SEEMS to be fine under normal driving situations, and most likely under continuous spirited driving. The problem lies in the introduction of AFTERMARKET sway bars into the mix. Which is probably exacerbated by putting these aftermarket sway bars on the STIFF setting. Remember Jim had lowered his car (Neuspeed HD Springs/Bilstein Shocks) and put on both the front 27mm Neuspeed bar, and rear 22mm Neuspeed Bar (on the stiff setting). In addition, Jim drives a rather long very curvy road EVERY workday to and from work. He lives in the hills above Santa Cruz. His commute is unlike anyone I know...very taxing on any car. The combined impact of all these things resulted in the serious damage to the subframe, and moderate damage to his plastic uplink arms.<p>This is not an Audi Recall item...if Jim would have left his car alone, in respect to suspension changes, these things, MOST LIKELY, would not have occurred. This is just my opinion btw. "Buy back of defective cars?"....No way Audi would go for that.<p>So lets all relax......take a deep breath....and see what develops in the next 2-3 weeks. I personally am going to remove my Neuspeed rear bar, FOR NOW, get the slight crack I have in the subframe MIG or TIG welded, and work on a design for a support piece. It is my intention to get all of this resolved by Oct 31st, when the next Solo2 Slush Series autox will be at Oakland Coliseum. I fully intend to have my rear Neuspeed sway bar BACK ON the car at that time. I fully intend to set it on the softer of the two adjustment settings.<p>I hope this clarifies the issue. Again, if anyone has put on ANYONE'S aftermarket sway bars, I would jack the car up and inspect the general rear bar mounting area and uplinks for possible damage. Only those that very anal, like me, should be checking the bar on a car with the OEM non-sport or sport suspension package.<br>BTW, Greg Woo has compiled a database of cars that have exhibited problems and it doesn't seem to be defined to one specific year or model...Jim's is a 98, mine and Sharon's are 97 model year cars.<p>Signed,<p>"The voice of reason"<br>97 2.8QM

After Steve posted his picture of his sub-assemble (nice picture), JayP, and I both brought up the possiblity of there being at least two different versions. Both of us have a different bolt and slot arrangment then the one pictured on Steve's car. I kinda expected a little more forum on this subject then it recieved. It might explain a few problems from the bar cracking thing, or muddle it up some more.

When I did my fiche search at the local dealer to determine the cost effectiveness of putting the sport suspension on my non-sport car, they did not have a separate part number for the rear bar like they did for the front. That led me to believe that the same rear bar is on both sport and non-sport suspension. This may have changed since <br>I last checked. FYI the stock front bar is 26.5mm and the sport is 29mm. <p>Chris<br>to reply remove anti-spam x in address

:-)