A4 Suspension & Steering — practice test

High-yield A4 topics

The material that shows up year after year. If you're short on time, start here.

• Camber, caster, toe - what each one actually does and what it wrecks. Toe is your wear angle: feathered or sawtooth edges across the tread, and it burns tires faster than anything else. Camber wears one shoulder. Caster does not wear tires at all - it controls return-to-center, steering effort, and straight-line stability. Cross-camber and cross-caster over about 0.5 degree pull toward the more positive camber and toward the less positive caster. Know that split, know the direction, and half the alignment questions answer themselves.
• SAI and included angle - the bent-part detector. SAI and IA are not adjustable and are not on the printout to look pretty. If camber is out but SAI is in spec, the spindle/knuckle is bent (IA moves with camber). If SAI and camber are both off but IA is normal, the strut tower or control arm mount moved - collision damage or a sagged cradle. They will absolutely give you a spec sheet and expect you to name the bent component.
• Ball joint and steering linkage inspection method. Loaded vs unloaded joints decide where you put the jack. A loaded lower ball joint on an SLA with the spring on the lower arm gets unloaded by jacking under the control arm, not the frame - jack the frame and you just measured nothing. Know axial vs radial play limits, know that a joint with a wear indicator gets checked at curb height with the tire on the ground, and know that a torn boot alone is a replacement.
• Power steering diagnosis by pressure gauge and by symptom. Gauge inline between pump and gearbox with the valve open: read flow at idle, then dead-head the valve for no more than about 5 seconds. Low pressure that comes up when the valve is closed means the pump is fine and the gear is leaking internally; low with the valve closed means the pump. Morning sickness (hard steering cold, fine warm) is the rack spool valve, not the pump. Whine plus foam equals air or low fluid; know the bleed/vacuum procedure.
• Wheels, tires, and the balance diagnosis. Static imbalance causes tramp/vertical bounce; dynamic imbalance causes shimmy/side-to-side wobble. Radial force variation and out-of-round survive balancing - road force or a runout check finds them. Know TPMS relearn types (auto, manual, tool), that a 315/433 MHz sensor still needs the ID written to the module, and know cupping/scalloping points at dead struts or shocks, not at alignment.
• Ride-control and electronic suspension. A blown strut shows as cupped tire wear, bounce test failure, and nose-dive. Air suspension: never lift the vehicle without disabling the system or it will inflate to the stops or set codes. Electronic ride height sensors, magnetic ride, and EPS torque sensors all require a calibration or steering-angle sensor reset after alignment - an alignment on an EPS/ESC car is not finished until SAS is zeroed.

Where techs lose points on A4

Good technicians miss these — not from lack of skill, but because the question is built to catch them.

• The pull question. Techs default to camber every time. But a hard pull that stays constant with a fully released wheel and does not follow the brakes is often caster split or a memory-steer/tire conicity issue. Cross-tire swap side-to-side: if the pull follows the tires, it is a radial pull, and no alignment change fixes it. The answer that says 'adjust camber' is bait about half the time.
• Confusing which angle is adjustable on the car in front of you. On a MacPherson strut car, caster is usually not adjustable without kits or slotting - so a caster-out reading points to damage, not adjustment. Answers offering 'adjust caster' on a strut vehicle are usually wrong. Same trap in reverse: setting toe before camber. Camber changes toe, so toe is always last.
• Treating a noise as a joint. Clunk over bumps is stabilizer bar links and bushings far more often than it is ball joints - a ball joint that is failing usually shows as wandering, uneven camber, or measurable play, not just a rattle. And the classic: memory steer and bind-up point to an upper strut mount/bearing or a binding joint, not the rack.
• Torque and setup shortcuts. Torqueing control-arm and bushing fasteners with the suspension hanging preloads the rubber and destroys the bushing plus changes ride height - torque at curb height/loaded. Ride height itself is a spec: if ride height is out, every alignment number is out, and the correct first answer is to fix ride height before touching a cam bolt. Also, forgetting to compensate the alignment heads for wheel runout is a live wrong-answer choice.

A study plan that works for A4

Roughly two weeks of real preparation, in the order that actually builds on itself.

1. Days 1-4: Alignment angles until it is reflex. Do not just memorize definitions - drill direction. Given a camber split, which way does it pull? Given feathered wear, which angle? Given SAI/IA numbers, which part is bent? Work spec sheets, not flashcards. This is the single highest-scoring block on the test.
2. Days 5-7: Steering. Power steering pressure/flow testing with the actual procedure and the dead-head time limit, gear vs pump isolation, rack and gearbox internal leak symptoms, EPS torque sensor and SAS calibration, plus linkage inspection (tie rod ends, idler and pitman arms, center link, rack bushings). Steering is the largest single task area - it deserves its own block.
3. Days 8-10: Suspension hardware and wheels/tires. Loaded vs unloaded ball joint checks, bushing and strut mount diagnosis, curb-height torque, ride height, air/electronic suspension service cautions, static vs dynamic balance, road force, runout, TPMS relearn. Read tire wear patterns from photos until you can call the cause before you read the answers.
4. Days 11-14: Timed practice tests only. 40 questions in 75 minutes, no notes. After each one, go back and write out WHY each wrong answer was wrong - the A4 distractors are all plausible repairs, and learning to spot the plausible-but-not-indicated fix is what moves your score. Re-drill any area under 80 percent.

Sample A4 questions

Straight from the bank — answers highlighted, with the explanation underneath.