April

It might be a hard one to check. All the more reason to baby-sit them;-)

SKareKrow

I know it sounds a little strange, but i am having the same type of little clunking sound when weight shifts and sometimes with throttle or brake input. My dealership isolated it to some spring or rotor piece in or around the brake pedal area. I will have specifics on Thursday when I pick up my car.

NovaScotia

My car has the exact same symptoms but it only developed over the last 4 - 6 weeks. Currently have 12,500 kms (7500 miles) on the car. The following is the sequence of events (bear in mind that only one technician at the local dealer works on my car - he has 12 years experience with AUDI - I know him on a first name basis)

JUNE 27 - Requested that every bolt be re - torqued on the front suspension including strut mounts etc. - Apparently this is done as part of the PDI - Explained that I felt something was loose in the front because of a clunking sound - Technician did not road test. Also had the tires (Toyo Proxies FZ4) rotated (back to Front) - NO IMPROVEMENT IN THE NOISE

JULY 4 - Technician removed the Toyos and remounted the OEM tires (Michelin MVM4) - NO IMPROVEMENT

JULY 11 - Technician road tested car with me and within one block heard the noise & ordered lower control arms for the right front. He advised that the ball joints (part of the control arm)are sealed units and can not be lubricated now . This is the source of the clunking and it happens depending upon the stress excerted upon the ball joint. He said it is virtually impossible to replicated the noise when the arms are still on the car. In the past he has taken the defective arm , placed it in a vice an reproduced the noise by moving the arms thus createing different stress levels. He used an educated guess that it is the lower control arm since in his experience upper control arms have only been replaced on high milage units.

He did indicate that the lower control arms were a significant problem on the 1996- 1998 A4 but in recent years it has been much better. However he recalled that on a 2000 A4 he replaced lower control arms on a new car when he was performing the initial PDI - before it even when to the showroom floor.

CURRENT STATUS - Parts are not in yet and the technician who does my work is on vacation this week . I expect to have the lower control arm replaced at some point during the week of July 22, 2002.

In my car it was obvious that the sound was coming from the right front . If you can not isolate it to one side than both lower control arms may be defective.

Also in my car it is somewhat temperature related since first thing in the morning it is harder to dectect. After I put 6 - 10 miles on the car it is far more noticeable. It is the worse when the pavement is rippled at low speeds & I virtually can not notice it at high speed (freeway speeds)

My car is the first 2002 A4 to have any control arms replaced by the local dealer and the part # is different than the previous version A4. However the local dealer is a low volume Audi shop ( 200 - 250 units per year)so that may not be significant.

I will do a post after the installation to let you know if it solved the problem.