🔧 BUILD Mike K's Lamborghini Super Build

[Mike K]

So initial concerns are major frame damage, subframe damage and any issues with the carbon rotor. They're $4500 each... used. There's a lot of what if's here. As you can see, the wheel was punched through and is hitting the caliper.



And it appears fine. So we move on.

 

[FirstWorldProblems]

IN. this is gonna be an awesome project

 

[Mike K]

The right wheel isn't turning at all and I noticed when we put it on the tow truck that the right tie rod end is loose on the rack side. I'm hoping it's broken under the boot and I can just replace it. I say that because the lack of anything connecting the wheel to the tie-rod resulted in the wheel turning full lock until it found the first thing that would stop it: the firewall. So next we're going to look for firewall damage.

And immediately we find what we're looking for. This is the rear of the passenger wheel well. You can see where the wheel/ tire have made contact with the apron and inner fender. It's likely that this is the point at which the vehicle is approaching total loss amounts for insurance. There is, to my understanding, no repairing this in any official way. The repair is to drill out the rivets, grind off the adhesive and replace the entire apron/ inner fender. Now do you absolutely NEED to do this? No. The car is perfectly straight and other than the ripped out screws, this is mostly aesthetic damage that will be completely covered by the mud guard. So I'm not too worried. I also verified (before pulling anything off the car) that the hood, fender, bumper cover, etc all still matched up and other than the obvious damage, everything was perfectly aligned.

 

[Mike K]

So now I want to see how deep this damage went and if it's any worse than what's here. I hop in the passenger compartment and pull back the carpet, looking for any sign of deforming. There is no deforming on the inside that I can spot. With the fender now removed, the passenger door opens and closes fine. That's great. I take a peak at the battery compartment which is below the passenger's feet on the Urus. Here I spot some damage. The front of the compartment has been hit and pushed up. Looking under the car reveals a puncture in the felt underlining. He must have run over a part of his car. The good news is the edges of the tray are fine. So we should be able to lightly punch this back out without issue. We could even do notting and it would be fine but it's minimal effort to wrap a piece of wood in a soft cloth and punch it out. So we'll give it a go when it's time. Moving on!

 

[Mike K]

Moving on, I cut the boot off the tie rod to see why it's loose. I'm crossing my fingers for a broken tie rod. Instead I get...

An intact tie-rod that's been completely stripped. Poo.



I check the steering rack and it too has had its threads completely stripped. I don't want to mess with re-threading something as important as a steering rack. So I'm not going to. The rack needs to be replaced. It's at this point I'm starting to appreciate the Audi/ VW relationship. The steering rack, as far as I can tell, is identical to the Cayenne, Q8, Q7, etc. The part numbers are all the same. The only thing I'm not sure about is steering ratios. It seems odd the Urus would have the same steering ratio as a Q7. Nonetheless, the part numbers are a direct interchange. That's great.

What's not great? I need to drop the subframe to get the rack out. Or do I... Audi is famous for building unapologetically difficult to work on vehicles but this steering rack appears to be below the subframe or rather, encompassed by the subframe. It bolts through the subframe at the bottom and apparently all I need to do is remove the brace under it as well as it's two bolts and I'll have it out. That's a far cry from pretty much any other vehicle I've worked on with 4 rings, especially the S8 sitting right next to it.



Also appreciated, they've finally switched to easy to remove connectors. For years VAG cars have had these terrible connectors that require sticking a pick in to pull up and then pull out. You almost needed three hands to remove any harness. Now they have these little tabs that pull out and then once you've pulled them out they turn into a standard squeeze plug. Bad ass!

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Honestly Mike it wouldn't surprise me that the ratio is exactly the same they would have different part numbers with different ratios just as GM does with the W's.

It's just plain cheaper for them to have one part number and use it with everything

 

[frank]

I would think with electric power steering the racks are the same and the difference would be in power steering control module / ebcm, etc… as when you change sport modes the module is what makes changes to the feel of the steering.

It’s funny with Audi, Bentley, lambo as they do share a good amount of parts, and each line has it own unique pricing on the same parts, when I ran a lambo/ Bentley parts department I use to sell parts to several audi dealers parts departments as my cost was cheaper then theirs.

 

[Mike K]

I would think with electric power steering the racks are the same and the difference would be in power steering control module / ebcm, etc… as when you change sport modes the module is what makes changes to the feel of the steering.

It’s funny with Audi, Bentley, lambo as they do share a good amount of parts, and each line has it own unique pricing on the same parts, when I ran a lambo/ Bentley parts department I use to sell parts to several audi dealers parts departments as my cost was cheaper then theirs.

I guess this is my own ignorance on how full electric power steering works. I know you can easily change assist level but what confuses me is the gear ratio. It just seems really surprising that these three cars would have identical ratios. Then again, the Urus also has rear steering. So maybe it uses that to change the effective ratio and I'm just overthinking it.

 

[Mook]

Well this is gonna be fantastic.

 

[Mike K]

My S8 is more of a Lamborghini than this Lamborghini. I'm not sure if that's a flex or not. It's incredible how much of this car is off the shelf VAG.


And in true Audi fashion, the entire fucking engine is in front of the wheels. I know we're at a point in time where this can be overcome with technology but why? Why have the entire car pivot around a boat anchor in the front of the car? This, above anything else, makes this car a true Audi.



And below that engine cover... we can see the oil hose snake down to the very pedestrian, run of the mill 4.0t. Don't get me wrong. The 4.0T is an amazing engine and the Urus is an amazing car. It takes a little bit of the wind out of the sails when you see how the sausage is made.

Circled: Stock oil fill on engine cover and actual oil fill on valve cover.

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

It's as if all the cost cutting after 08 is surprising you for some reason

 

[IDAFC21]

good lord

 

[Mike K]

Moving, we find the both the knuckle and control arms bent. The control arms took such a hard hit that the bushing was ripped out of the arm itself. Yum! The good news is that the subframe and the frame of the car appear un-damaged. As it sits right now, if I had all the parts, this would be a fairly straight forward re-assembly.

 

[Jon01]

In for this adventure.

Also in to see how much shared/repurposed engineering there is between this and the more plebian VAG products.

 

[smug]

Love the Urus! Any trouble buying parts for that thing? I did for an Audi S8 because I was certified.

 

[Shawn1112]

My S8 is more of a Lamborghini than this Lamborghini. I'm not sure if that's a flex or not. It's incredible how much of this car is off the shelf VAG.
View attachment 152655View attachment 152653View attachment 152654

And in true Audi fashion, the entire fucking engine is in front of the wheels. I know we're at a point in time where this can be overcome with technology but why? Why have the entire car pivot around a boat anchor in the front of the car? This, above anything else, makes this car a true Audi.

View attachment 152656

And below that engine cover... we can see the oil hose snake down to the very pedestrian, run of the mill 4.0t. Don't get me wrong. The 4.0T is an amazing engine and the Urus is an amazing car. It takes a little bit of the wind out of the sails when you see how the sausage is made.

Circled: Stock oil fill on engine cover and actual oil fill on valve cover.

View attachment 152657

100% flex imo, that blows my mind

 

[BrianG]

Goddamn. I know I'm behind here but the last Mike K post I saw was about a Model S IIRC. He fox with a Lambo now?!

 

[Mike K]

Well, I’ve got it all down now. Total damage:

Right fender
Right headlight
Right intercooler, mount and air funnel
Right radiator (behind intercooler)
Wheel/ tire
Complete right front suspension minus air strut
Right front wheel well liners
Bumper cover
Bumper trim pieces for right side
Steering rack
Fender support brackets
Headlight support brackets
Auxiliary coolant pump
Bumper harness

Repair:

Hood - aluminum and not super damaged but not sure if we can fix.

Bracket rivets

All in, it’s not terrible but like any project like this, it’s the small stuff that kills you. You can find a fender but that obscure bracket that it mounts to? Good luck.

For now, it’s completely torn down awaiting next steps, whatever those are. I’d really like to buy it and source the parts over time as I can find deals on them but if he wants me to fix it I can make that work too.

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Just use the lidar on the new iPhone to scan the driver side bracket Mirror Image it and 3D print a new one out of plastic and then glue it on

 

[Blownbyyou]

if you want out of metal send
Me image and I’ll cut and bend and powder hahahah

 

[DEEZUZ]

Burble tuned. My God.

 

[Jon01]

So since insurance isn't involved, it still has a clean title right? How about Carfax/Auto check?

 

[Mike K]

So since insurance isn't involved, it still has a clean title right? How about Carfax/Auto check?

Yeah, it would be clean title. The only way you'd ever know it was involved in anything is you pulled back the wheel well liner or looked at the battery tray. Otherwise everything will look stock and line up like stock.

 

[Mike K]

As far as the brackets go, I can get them. It's just that they cost an exorbitant amount of money. If the choice is have me fix it or sell it to me, I have a strong preference towards just buying it. Because these brackets and small trim pieces can take months sometimes unless you're willing to overpay for them by a lot. That's what's killed me on the Maserati. It's been "done" for almost two months in so much as the frame was straight and all I needed to do was bolt on the parts if I had them. But it's like you order a knuckle and then they send the wrong one. Order a fender and it gets damaged. Order a hood and it takes 5 weeks to arrive. I ordered my bumpers, headlights and tail lights from China the first week of January and they won't be here for another three weeks. It's tedious.

I'd rather just have this sit in my garage, collect parts as deals pop up, and put it together that way. But I don't want to do that if I don't own it because I don't want someone else's car taking up my garage space for 6 months. So I still don't know how we proceed. I also gave him the option of towing it out of here. He's not obligated to have me fix it or really do anything beyond what we've done.