Corroded and snapped lower rear suspension arm

[Mister Tee]

Hi All, How long should rear suspension arms last before they get so corroded they break! Mine is 11 years old but the repairing garage and the AA recovery reckon they should never get like this in 11 years......thoughts please

[Magnet]

Hello Simon,

Thanks for posting the question of how long these critical components should last. It may be considered that 11 years is not long enough, but the location and design make these vulnerable. However, there will be other variables such as what region the car has been used in, that will indicate the likely amount of winter salt used, etc., so for me, I would think the question is generally unanswerable. 
What really concerns me here is how on earth a car with such an obviously corroded component like this would have passed an MOT in the last 12 months - and even if it did, why it wasn’t marked as an advisory. 
When did it pass its MOT Simon, and in terms of maintenance, how long have you owned it, and when was it last in a garage for servicing? 
If this were mine, I would be renewing both sides, and considering renewing the shock absorbers since they might also be rather/well rusted. 
Perhaps you can come back to us with the detail.

Kind regards,

Gareth. 

[Mister Tee]

Hi Gareth

Thanks for the response...answers to your questions:

• MOT was in May ( I also share your concern)
• Owned it since new
• Serviced on an annual basis
• Both sides renewed when this happened

I do appreciate it's almost an unanswerable question and I guess i was just wondering if anyone had shared the same experience

[Magnet]

Many thanks Simon, 

Apologies, but I really think you are mis-directing your concerns about how long these components should last, and your primary  concern should rest with the MOT centre and/or the servicing garage, both of whom have put you in a life threatening situation with this vehicle. 
To try to box this up:- Is the servicing garage also the MOT testing garage? 
Irrespective of your answer, I would be steering well clear of them/the pair of them, since they have both put you and yours in this unacceptably dangerous situation. 
You mentioned ‘both sides renewed -when happened’, which may suggest this didn’t happen yesterday -? 
If this rusted component failed within 3 months of the MOT date, then you could/should have notified VOSA, who would then have investigated the MOT station. This might well have saved others from a similar fete in the future. 
If this were mine:- my objective would be to find another trusted local garage, and an MOT station as soon as possible. 
Kind regards,

Gareth. 

[Mister Tee]

Thanks Gareth....I will follow up as advised

[cliffcoggin]

I agree with Gareth that incipient corrosion should have been detected long before it became so bad that structural failure occurred. That is precisely what the MOT test is for, so somebody is concealing something. A substantial piece of steel like that can not go from being acceptably fit for purpose in May to a complete failure in just five months.

As for the cause, I have never known this sort of failure on any car of any age so I wonder about corrosion or mistreatment. I see you are nowhere near the sea but salt treatment of the roads for de-icing in winter is a possible source of corrosion, particularly if you do not occasionally wash the underside of the car.  Mechanical mistreatment might involve jacking the car wrongly or at the wrong point thus weakening the steel. Both possibilities seem remote, but I can not think of another explanation. I believe you can be confident that there is no inherent defect in the original Audi components, so the failure must involve the way it has been used or treated.

[Mister Tee]

46 minutes ago, cliffcoggin said:

I agree with Gareth that incipient corrosion should have been detected long before it became so bad that structural failure occurred. That is precisely what the MOT test is for, so somebody is concealing something. A substantial piece of steel like that can not go from being acceptably fit for purpose in May to a complete failure in just five months.

As for the cause, I have never known this sort of failure on any car of any age so I wonder about corrosion or mistreatment. I see you are nowhere near the sea but salt treatment of the roads for de-icing in winter is a possible source of corrosion, particularly if you do not occasionally wash the underside of the car.  Mechanical mistreatment might involve jacking the car wrongly or at the wrong point thus weakening the steel. Both possibilities seem remote, but I can not think of another explanation. I believe you can be confident that there is no inherent defect in the original Audi components, so the failure must involve the way it has been used or treated.

Thanks Clifford....Jacking the car has never been an issue and the car has been maintained, serviced and generally looked after in the way that all of our cars have been. At 11 years it's probably the longest we have owned one but I agree it's the MOT issue that is most concerning

[Magnet]

Thanks Simon,

The bit about servicing/MOT station. 
Are these one and the same, and/or does the servicing garage get the car MOT’d at the same time as the service is carried out. 

Any intention of taking the arm to the MOT station for them to see what they have missed about 3 months ago!? 
Kind regards,

Gareth. 

[Mister Tee]

It's mainly the same garage Gareth, but servicing and MOT don't always exactly match as it depends on mileage

 

[Jimmyvee]

I was just in with my mechanic for a small repair and he showed me your situation starting to develop on my car.  His take (VINTEST Audi VW)  is that there should be a "RECALL" on this part, as he has seen on lots of cars with this issue and it should not be on any car less than 20 years old if ever. Its a MAJOR SAFETY ISSUE, if this collapses while driving lives will be lost.  He thinks if just plan bad engineering design.  Where you see v shaped collapse there is a dip which collects salty materials and excess or premature corrosion starts.  Mine are o.k. for now but the weakening has started, he hit it with a hammer a few times and I could hear the difference in metal sound. So its on my near term list to go after, still it should not be the case.

Dave V Audi A3 2011 136km Toronto Canada

[Jimmyvee]

There is a under body paint in North America called Por15 its an acid based paint, so while applying it will eat through your gloves and destroy your paint brush but it stops rust completely chemically rather than covering it. Its not cheap about $107 Cad a quart.  Even if others here may not see this problem now as a preventative idea one may want to paint it this stuff.

[Mister Tee]

Thanks Jimmyvee...it did actually collapse while my wife was driving and fortunately she had left the motorway and was driving slowly on a minor road

[cliffcoggin]

14 hours ago, Jimmyvee said:

I was just in with my mechanic for a small repair and he showed me your situation starting to develop on my car.  His take (VINTEST Audi VW)  is that there should be a "RECALL" on this part, as he has seen on lots of cars with this issue and it should not be on any car less than 20 years old if ever. Its a MAJOR SAFETY ISSUE, if this collapses while driving lives will be lost.  He thinks if just plan bad engineering design.  Where you see v shaped collapse there is a dip which collects salty materials and excess or premature corrosion starts.  Mine are o.k. for now but the weakening has started, he hit it with a hammer a few times and I could hear the difference in metal sound. So its on my near term list to go after, still it should not be the case.

Dave V Audi A3 26,919.61 Miles Toronto Canada

A recall on a 13 year old car? I accept that environmental conditions and the laws are very different in Canada, but such action would be out of the question in Brtitain and the rest of Europe. I would go further and say it would be an unrealistic expectation.

As for surface treatment of steel against rust, that will only provide long term protection if done in the factory during manufacture, when it is possible to treat every void and hollow in the component. Such treatment after assembly of the car is impractical, possibly impossible.

Of course good design of press formed components that are not waterproof should also incorporate drainage holes so that water can escape, such as you find at the bottom of doors for example. Whether the suspension arms in question have those holes I have no idea.

[Jimmyvee]

Air bags by Takata going back as long at 2001 so that is 23 years, Really 13 years far too long I do not think so.  VW did a recall on rust on fenders, runners and the rear door occurring with in 15 years.  Problem was trying to get a dealer to actually do the recall.   Oddly I post 136k km and it somehow get restated as 26,919.61 it should be 86k m  hmm what is with that.  The whole comment of he abused his car and that is why there is a problem  What a crock!.  I drove a MK4 TDI for 17 years, rallied it 8 years. Selling just a few month ago with 684k km on it that car was abused, went airborne several times in races but never had a failure described above.  Funny thing while VINTEST was showing me this event another customer watched and after immediately walked under his car to see if he had the same situation and nope does not exist on an RS6.  Given that the design is completely different on other Audi and VW cars tells me they knew they had a problem and decided to fix it.

Cliff every auto company has failures in design get over it your relentless defence is questionable.  As for different driving situations, every winter except last year this Audi A3 was stored inside over the winter.  This winter was its first winter because I sold my VW TDI.  As for snow this winter we had just 2 storms of note and we did not drive in either of them.

Of any country can force a auto company to do a recall its America, lots of lawyers willing to make the case.  Too bad so many manufacturers need to be beaten in court before they act.

Simon wife was lucky driving on a side road with this failure, I'm sure if she was on the M series highway things could have been very different.  By the way I lived in London near Angel Station, in a roll house with a canal in front from 1996-1998.  So I'm know your roads just fine.    

 

 

[Jimmyvee]

I found the parts on rockauto MEVOTECH CMS101216 for $136.60 USD for the pair or LEMFÖRDER 3675801 for $129.60 USD if that a good price versus his cost.  The dealer here offers them just $395 Cad each wow what a deal, stealerships got to wonder how they stay in business.  

[Jimmyvee]

As for my Golf TDI 2000 mk4 in 2019 I drove it from Toronto to  Tuktoyaktuk North West Territories, the most northern place in Canada one can drive and just 6 months later to Patagonia Argentina  the most southern point one can drive.  I thought that would be a cool accomplishment.  The return we somewhat direct but I went along the gulf coast to  Florida and Fort Myers along the east coast to Cape Cod and then back to Toronto. I suffered a few failures but no events like above.    Bad design accept it and move on.

[Magnet]

Hello Dave,

Many thanks for your contributions on this, and particularly your confirmation that the recall situation on your side of the Atlantic is very much difference to here in the U.K. for example - where the big legal guns are an awful lot smaller! 
Yes, of course, this particular example is totally unacceptable, but to me, my criticism lies fairly and squarely with the servicing and MOT station  (one and the same) where Mister Tee’s car is ‘maintained’. This should have been picked up at the service point - probably a couple of years ago - and since it wasn’t, then the MOT tester ( one and the same person?) has been shown to be lacking in his examination. 
If this were mine, I would be steering well clear of this garage, and trusting my, and my families life to someone else. 
 

David,

Your last sentence :- We would thank you for not ‘shouting’. Thank you . 
Kind regards,

Gareth. 
 

[cliffcoggin]

13 hours ago, Jimmyvee said:

 

You are mistaken to believe I was defending Audi's design. However even a poorly designed component will not change from being certified as sound one year to suffering a structural failure less than a year later. That, as two of us have pointed out, is the important matter here. The implication being that the testing station failed in its duty to detect the rusting at an early stage.

All steel rusts eventually. It's a fact that has to be accepted as part of the expected deterioration of cars, and is part of the reason that annual inspections are required to detect such corrosion before it affects a cars road worthiness.

PS. I used to the know the Angel well as I grew up near there somewhat before your time, though I have no idea what a roll house is.

[Jimmyvee]

I think roll house or townhouse but it was on Vincent Terrace so maybe local term a terrace house, whatever.  My point made by VinTest is that this is just poor design and it dangerous and should not be happening at this age and on newer cars they decide it needed to be redesigned.  Interesting the point of his collapse is where my car is also sounding off from solid steel.  A "V" shape of thick rust is noticeable.   

I may order the part from the USA shipped to my USA address, shipping parts in Canada can be shockingly higher sometimes than the USA.  I'll check with Vintest, he tends not to mark up parts that much.  Although I have bought new tires in Canada recently that cost about $80 less each at home versus buying on Cape Cod at the cottage.   It seems successive anti-free trade governments starting with Trump then Biden have shifted the cost benefit in parts from USA to Canada on tires and two other recent repairs wheel baring ABS sensors and front suspension control arm.    My last set of tire I bought in the USA and saved $300 from buying in Canada but now was $320 lower at home that Cape Cod.

 

All our Guns come from America The land of the free to shoot your neighbour, I still remember the national Geographic picture showing a child peeing over the nation property line to America. 

[Magnet]

Seems wise to now close this topic since it’s tending to deviate from the original topic. 
Regards,

Gareth.