pbcsd

So had a weird sound suddenly start on Emmy wife’s Q5. Right side.

Past the warranty but took it to the Dealer to check if it was safe to drive. Service guy took it for a spin and said it was the ball joints. Took it to the back to confirm.

Said I needed to replace the right lower ball joint “and would do the left at the same time”.

Price is pretty ridiculous at C$1450+tax for ball joints and alignment.

But what I’m wondering is…1 I’ve never heard of a ball joint needing replacement at 90,000km/56000 miles and 2. Why would they need to replace both if only one is defective? Is it pretty common to replace both at the same time?

thx

TJK

Can’t say if that is too early for ball joints to go but that’s not unheard of, especially if they somehow took a hit or were damaged unexpectedly. And yes it is standard to replace them in pairs. Ask the mechanic to show you the worn out ball joint. Wear on them is not hidden - it should be obvious. Torn boots and floppy easy movement are tell tale signs if there’s no more obvious serious damage to them. A decent tire/alignment/brake type specialist shop should be able to do these for cheaper than the dealer unless Audi engineers over-engineered these too, and some sort of special tools are necessary.

rdA4WtQ5

Our cars actually have (4) ball joints per front wheel. (2) on top and (2) on the bottom. Not normal at all for these to be worn with your mileage. Agree more like damage from hitting something.

toomanymc

Yup it’s early to need replacement so I would suspect damage of some kind.

the Q5 has a pretty advanced and expensive suspension setup so I that price does not sound too far off. I say go to your local VW/Audi tuner or independent VW/Audi shop and get a quote from them. It should be less but if you get OEM parts, and you should, it’s still going to be expensive compared to say a Honda CR-V.

I would not sit on it too long either. Excessive motion in one suspension part will spread to others and it will only get more expensive

Audi_wiz

pbcsd, do you get a clunk when either turning on an incline or full suspension travel (big bump or pothole) of the front passenger wheel? I'm having this issue myself but haven't had time to take the wheel off and inspect. I brought it up last year and dealer could not replicate (go figure), out of warranty now. But it only clunks in the winter, it was fine all spring and summer.

pbcsd

On tight turns while breaking in particular I hear a grinding sound coming from the passenger front. Service guy couldn’t replicate so I got in the car and drove it for him to hear.

Universe93B

Like TJK said, I've heard of older Audis having this happen at low miles. But shouldn't a suspension/tire place be able to do this - that's where everyone else gets this kind of work done without getting ripped off by dealer prices. Let us know - I would be pretty upset if Audi over-engineered this to the point of nobody else able to repair a simple part like this.

pbcsd

Checking with another shop. Watched a 17 minute video on replacing them in a 2017 Q5, hopefully it hasn’t changed night and day from that! Admittedly the video was sped up…but even if it’s an hour for them the price seems ridiculous. The OEM parts alone though are c$500 plus tax…but still $1k in labour/alignment on top of even that excessive part price feels ridiculous.

Wires

Any Indy shop can do an alignment for $125-150 CAD. Due to new car shortages, there seems to be a lot of dealers adding an extra "luxury tax" to their service fees to cover it. For work like that, I'd find a good independent mechanic.

TJK

I don’t know what parts you need but I just googled 2018 Q5 ball joints and even the most expensive genuine Audi branded ones are like $150. I bet Lemfoerders are fine and they are like $60. Ball joints shouldn’t be $500 a pair. It’s not a Ferrari