learning the hard way

Well, I spent literally all day sunday (and I mean from 8AM to 10PM) and monday night working on my brakes. I also successfully swapped out my engine mounts as well sunday morning. One would think that replacing engine mounts would be the more challenging task, but this did not prove to be true in my case.

Let me back up a bit... A week before vacation, I took my A4 into the dealer to get a 60K mile maintenance done. And, inevitably, there were several things wrong with my frou-frou german car that recently expired from its warranty period. First of all, the driver's side CV boot was ripped and the CV joint was leaking grease -- not good.

Second, my passenger side engine mount was completely useless and the driver's side was leaking. Yes, I said leaking. Apparently, the germans fill the frou-frou engine mounts with hydraulic fluid inside a rubber bladder to absorb the greatest amount of ambient engine noise before it reaches the passenger cabin.. or something. It was probably like this for quite some time.

And third, my front brake pads were approximately 1MM thick. Yeah, not good either. They tells me that I had 8MM the last time they checked my brakes 6 months ago. Yeah, right, a new pad is only around 18MM thick new. Whatever. Anyhow, with $100+ a hour labor the total cost was estimated to be around $1800. Ugh.

I had all but resigned to pay the inordinate amount, when my cube neighbor (and weekend grease-monkey) said, "Hold on, let's go down and take a look at it first" Which we did. My audi "service advisor" put on a pathetic theatrical display when he realized my coworker was succeeding in talking me out of letting them fix some of the problems. He basically looked like he was personally offended. It was just weird.

Anyway, I ended up letting the dealer finish the maintenance and replace the CV boot. I did know my limits and I was not about to tackle that one. But decided that I could replace the engine mounts and brakes myself with my coworker's offer of help.


maintenance/CV boot

Total cost so far: $550

So I ordered the engine mounts and brake pads online. With free shipping...



2 engine mounts and 4 sets of german pads: $250
total cost so far: $800

And so, I went on vacation and gallivanted across the state of washington leaving burning jeeps in my wake.

Two weeks after my return on saturday, I prepared for the big day. I printed the procedures from the internet. I bought a set of metric hex sockets and a universal disk brake piston retractor kit from Harbor Freight: 50$



total cost so far: $850



And so I went on sunday morning to my coworker's house to work on the audi. Things were going quite well... I followed this procedure and then this procedure. After about four hours, it was time to bleed the brakes and try them out some time around 1PM. And, of course, they didn't work.

So the most obvious answer is that we need to bleed the brakes again.. there must be air in the line somewhere. So we would bleed the brakes and try them out again. Still spongy. This went on for an hour or two until we stopped and ate some Wendy's.

So then we thought, maybe our bleeding technique is faulty. So my coworker went to the auto store and bought a fancy contraption to help with the bleeding process. No dice.

At this point, I could not remember the last time that I've had felt so completely exhausted. I must have raised and lowered the car, put wheels on and taken wheels off more than a dozen times that day. My legs felt like rubber, my arms were like cooked speggetti, I was covered in grease and brake fluid, my knuckles were bleeding, and I smashed my thumb.

And, my brakes still didn't work.

After working until after dark, we decided to call it quits for the night and then just go to work the next day (monday) and search the internet for help. I limped the audi back to my apartment (my coworker only lives a mile or two away) and noticed a new rattle from the passenger side wheel. But I was too tired to worry about it at the time. Too tired to even eat, I just showered and went to bed.

Somewhere around 5AM, I thought, "it has to be the rotors! they are too worn and are preventing the pads from contacting fully!" And so, my coworker picked me up to go to work that day.

After work, we stopped by Pep Boys to buy a set of new rotors: 230$



total cost so far: 1080$

Ha, ha... it's going to work now! or so we thought. I started to take apart my brakes when I suddenly realized what that rattle was. I had lost a very important spring somewhere along the roadside driving the car home the previous night. I think my heart literally stopped beating for a minute or two. We needed that spring.

So my coworker immediately jumped on his bicycle and retraced my path back to the apartment to try to find the spring. Meanwhile, I proceeded to take off the calipers, retract the pistons, replace the rotors and reattach the calipers in record time. (things go faster the second time)... Right before it was getting dark, my coworker miraculously found the spring!! it was on the street just before the first stop light. It had obviously been run over, but still intact.

So we finished up on the brakes and were just about to put the tires on and lower the car to test them when it started to rain. And wouldn't you know it? when we looked at the radar, the entire DFW region was clear except for a little green splotch over us on the northeast side of 75/635. So we just decided to eat dinner and wait it out.

When the rain stopped, we put on the springs and tested the car. And... still didn't work. After testing them out, we noticed that the springs would not stay on. So we tried bending them a little and still no dice. This went on for a good hour until, I just decided we should call it a night again and sleep on it again. This time, I left the car at his house.

So when my coworker called me to pick me up tuesday morning, he announced that he had fixed the problem. What we were too dense to pick up on was that we were installing the spring incorrectly. He had finally found a picture of what the installed spring should look like at 5 in the morning (he's an early-riser, he's got a 6 mo old baby) and went out and fixed it on my car.

And so, the brakes finally worked and I drove my car to work tuesday morning.

Although, if I had installed the spring correctly 1PM on sunday afternoon, I would not have bought new rotors because I was being cheapskate. In the end, it was probably good that I did anyway. Besides the physical aches and pains, it was my pride that sustained most of the damage.

I must have become over-confident as I had successfully accomplished all of the difficult tasks while overlooking how a simple spring was supposed to be installed. I could have saved hours of grief, if I had just calmly sat down and really thought about it for 10 minutes. ugh.

In hind-sight, I would like to blame this lapse of engineering prowess to my extreme fatigue and non-stop frenzy fed only by adrenaline and a wendy's bacon cheeseburger. But in reality, we F*@#'d up.

All I can say is, "oh well."




p.s. I went to the dealer today to buy a new spring to replace the one that got run over (it squeaks a bit) and I plan to swap it this weekend: 10$

total cost: 1090$
total savings: ~700$
satisfaction of doing it yourself: ask me again in a month or two.