New personal record for TRE exchange....

atomicalex · Jul 11, 2007

Well, I have to do yet another TRE. I got 75K out of the stock ones, 65K on 15s and 10K on 17s. The Meyle HD ones I put in at 75K are not holding up, at least the passenger one is definitely shot. This is 25K with 17s for summer and 15s for winter.

What's the buzz on the latest and greatest in TREs? I want to order ASAP.

Oh yeah, and I turned 100K and lost a CV boot in the process. Yippee, that's being fixed on thursday - thank goodness for Steve's Euro, I have a track day on saturday and no time whatsoever to do the boot myself!

passaturbonium · Jul 11, 2007

Now you are scaring me Alex, I have HD Meyles as well.....

Good question though.

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deusexaethera · Jul 11, 2007

Are you sure it's not the inner tie-rod joint that's wearing out?

Rusty · Jul 11, 2007

Well, there's always the CPP TRE's. Other than that, I don't know anything any better than the Meyle HD ones. Of course, I depend on PW for my info...

modifiedA4 greases his. I forget exactly how. I think he uses a needle fitting on the grease gun?

modifiedA4 · Jul 11, 2007

Rusty said:
modifiedA4 greases his. I forget exactly how. I think he uses a needle fitting on the grease gun?

correct! :thumbup:

atomicalex · Jul 11, 2007

Oh yeah, it's the TRE. The car was up on a lift the other day and I got to see it myself (I love my tuner shop!!). The pin was wobbling in the ball joint, pretty pathetic.

quality_sound · Jul 11, 2007

My CCPs were friggin aweome. I had them for ~2 years with 19s almost exclusively and they're sooooo much nicer than ANYTHING with rubber in it. Plus with the boots now you don't have to worry about having to grease them. :thumbup:

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atomicalex · Jul 11, 2007

Yikes, Paul, $315 for two ball joints? I have to think about that.

quality_sound · Jul 11, 2007

Huh? I just did the UCAs. Retail for the stainless steel versions was something like $499 IIRC, but you won't be replacing them every 50K AND you'll finally be able to adjust camber and caster. :thumbup:

Electron Man · Jul 11, 2007

When mine (OE set) wear out, I'll be doing "longevity testing" on a pair of S4 TREs.

atomicalex · Jul 11, 2007

Tie rod ends, not upper control arms, Paul! TREs do nothing for camber and caster.

S4, hmmmm, Jay? I think I will investigate.

per ECS, the stock S4 TRE is the same as the HD Passat one from Meyle. I will check the ETKA at home tonight.

quality_sound · Jul 11, 2007

oooooooh. And I even read that and it never clicked.

Odd that you're going through TREs though. The wagon had 55K on it when I traded it in and mine were solid as day 1.

modifiedA4 · Jul 11, 2007

*arrrg* :banghead:

double post...sorry.

atomicalex · Jul 18, 2007

New personal record - I did the passenger side in about an hour. This included forgetting that the top bolt was 1/2" and rounding it off with a 13mm, then pounding the 1/2" on there. Blah blah and blah. The anti-seize that I coated everything with last time payed off in spades, and this time I went the futher step of soaking everything in low-strength threadlocker. The difference between the old one and new one was pretty impressive - the old one had a lot of play, I'd guess about 3 degrees, the new one was of course solid.

And the ECS website is a bit misleading in what is an S4 TRE. The Lemfoerderer ones are the S4 ones, the Meyles are the all-purpose HD ones. So we'll see how these hold up to the 17s and sticky tyres.

I'll get an alignment tomorrow at lunch and call it a day. The driver's side is still solid, so I'll wait on that one, knowing I have the part in the toolbox waiting for it to go bad.

Oh yeah, and the CV boot. What a disaster. I opted to just have the boot replaced because the joint was not making any noise and the boot was still full of grease. Ha! I could have ordered the Raxle on monday, but no! And how I paid. The joint was completely trashed, in spite of not making any noise and being full of grease. I'm going with I had a bad joint and this isn't typical, but the guys at the shop were not so charitable. So consider having the outer joints looked at at some point. Blah.

quality_sound · Jul 18, 2007

What top nut are you talking about?

Purplezr2 · Jul 18, 2007

1/2 inch bolt on a German vehicle, ?????????

slayerrule · Jul 18, 2007

s4 TRE are solid steel, they dont have rubber dumpening in the shaft

dutch-mountains · Jul 18, 2007

HTH:

-TRE (B5.5) 8E0 419 811 B, Meyle 116 050 8228/HD
-TRE (S4) 8E0 419 811, Lemforder 25972, Meyle 116 050 0008/HD

Rusty · Jul 18, 2007

167,000 miles on original CV joints and boots, and 7 out of 8 original control arms. Replaced the TREs w/heavy duty ones - not because they were worn, but because one of them was stuck (adjusting threads) and the car could not be aligned.

Albuquerque climate must be good for these cars.

billybobjerky · Jul 18, 2007

I've got some febi bilsteins to put on. nothing special though. stock have been on there ages I think. Could something else not being quite right be causing yours to wear so quick?

or do you just rag it (track days etc.)

wheresjim · Jul 18, 2007

I just replaced my TREs with Moog TREs for $70 a pop. I got them at Winchester Auto Parts, which is a local chain here, so on the price YMMV.

atomicalex · Jul 18, 2007

I beat on it pretty badly with track days and Michigan roads.

The Lemfoerders were $65 each at ECS, but as ECS is hosing me on another transaction, I'd recommend going elsewhere now that we know what to buy.

slayerrule · Jul 19, 2007

if you want i can get you a set of those S4 TRE for a bit cheaper than what ecs lists them

New personal record for TRE exchange....

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