d6lc

I have a 2001 A6 4.2 that I purchased in May with 162k on, the care has the ‘fat five’ 17 inch alloys and sports suspension setup, the car was extremely well maintained by the previous owner. One thing I noticed was what I through was worn wheel bearings in that there was a rumbling from the wheels, the previous owner said it was due to the tires he had on RFT Bridgestones. I had the car checked out by an Indy and he said the bearing very rarely fail on these and blamed the noise on the wheel and tire combo (he has a 4.2 A6 himself so knows a fair bit about these).
So this weekend I had the winter tires fitted that came with the car on the same standard wheels, and the noise is worse!!
Is this normal?, is it the tires or do you think at that mileage the bearings are worn?, I don’t get any appreciable increase on noise when cornering just a lot when on the highway. Any advise is appreciated as this is spoiling what is essentially a great car.

Just Me

Bearings most certainly do go - i replaced a RF at 80k on my S6 - a very similar car.

You can certainly have two sets of noisy tires though......

Typically they will nto both go at the same time. Is the noise from one side? If oyu cant tell, do this test:

swerve fairly hard, and consistently back and forth (make S turns). As you turn left you load the right wheel bearing and if that is the bad bearing, the noise should be worse, then reduce as you turn right. And vice-versa.

Grant

d6lc

Thanks Grant, I'll get in an empty car park and try it again.

One question on yours, would you describe it as a noisy car from a tire perspective?

Just Me

Not particularly. Its more noisy than your average family sedan for two reasons:

1. stiffer suspension means more NVH transmitted. Springs and bushings are filters, after all.

2. Performance cars have performance tires, which are tuned less for NVH and more for, well, performance

Mine's pretty quiet. Then again my other car is a track car, so everything's relative.

Grant

Just Me

It will need to be a large parking lot. You need some speed. I generally test it on roads (lightly traveled ones).

Grant

ITGUY

Did the Indy check propshaft center bearing, shaft alignment, and joints at each end?

GTA_Driver

Is the sound coming from the right or left side? If it's more from one side, likely wheel bearing.

If the noise is uniform, then you could have noisy tires, even the new ones.

d6lc

Thanks for the feedback, I would say it is pretty uniform and dont specifically notice it increasing on cornering.

Alexr80

The right wheel bearing broke on my previous car earlier this year(Renault). The noise came after i changed from winter tires.

It was impossible to hear which side the noise was coming from and i also tried changing back to winter tires with no change in sound.

My solution was to jack the car up and check all of the tires. Just spin each tire as fast as you can by hand, and you will hear if a wheel bearing is broken. You can also have a hand on the spring while spinning the wheel and you will probably feel some vibrations if the bearing is broken.

d6lc

cheers Alex, dumb question, does this method work with the
Quattro system