Replacing springs...............?

[V8Smith]

I had new front springs fitted to my Audi A8, and when I drove it I noticed straight away that the steering wheel is down to the left? Do they have to take something off that would alter this whilst doing the springs or not? Can they have altered the tracking whilst doing the work? The garage is saying they didnt move anything that could possibly alter this, are they telling the truth?

Cheers

Mike

[GreenV8S]

They've been working on the front suspension so if the steering wheel alignment has changed it seems obvious that it's due to something they've done.

Don't know what the front suspension layout is on those, but assuming you have struts it wouldn't be unreasonable to disconnect the steering arms along the way. If they reset the tracking after refitting, it would be possible for an inept mechanic to do this in a way that left the steering wheel off-center afterwards. Of course, I don't know if they actually did [need to] reset the tracking so this may not be applicable.

I'd also wonder whether they have disconnected the steering column too, and put it back one spline out. Not sure why they would need to disconnect the column though.

[agent006]

All sorts of stuff can alter the tracking. I'd take it and have a proper 4 wheel alignment done (does quattro audis the world of good anyhow).