I am pretty sure that my DRC has never been touched. (: P) Unless it was a recall done by the first owner. I purchased the car in 2009, with 60k miles. It now has 134k. I have a very "stiff" front suspension, and it seems to bottom out to the bottom pan if I hit a speed "hump" not "bump" too quickly. RFront especially. I figured this could possibly be due to the DRC being low of pressure, and therefore lack of shock damping. I brought it into Audi, and they wanted $500 for a DRC fluid swap/refill/recharge. I was fine with this but then they said the upper control arm bushings were torn, this needed removal of the shock to replace, and needed to be done prior to recharge. All other suspension components looked perfect, including zero visually detectable DRC leaks. To replace the upper control arms, they wanted $1800. Roughly $250 per arm, and 4 hours to R & R. I have done upper control arms before and was a little taken aback by the number. However, I have not done uppers on an RS6 with DRC.

Before I get scrap the DRC comments, can I get some feedback as to the following:

- Is it is possible to R&R upper control arms without disconnecting the DRC?
- If the DRC has to be disconnected, what is the safe method for doing so?

The car would then be flat bedded back to the dealer for recharge.

Comments?

Thanks!

PS - Audi said the very worn front control bushings could cause the bottoming out. Not sure how. I am sure that all of my suspension components are original. This car has not been driven hard. At all.