jonathans2017

Hi all, I made an account just to ask this question since I couldn’t find anyone talking about it anywhere!

I have a 2015 Audi S3 prestige and while doing some work underneath the car I noticed this (took pictures below). This is the front end of the drive shaft. Upon further research, it appears the drive shaft connects to what is called something like a front drive shaft joint / flex disk. Apparently this thing absorbs vibrations and other stuff from the drive shaft. As you can see, to me, it looks like it has all these micro-cracks (some of it looks like paint bubbling or something). I’m worried this might be an issue. I need to check the rear to see if it’s the same. But anyway, what kind of issues might this cause? How serious is it?
One other thing to is that my car has these weird vibrations within certain speeds, such as 35-40mph and 70-75 mph. And they happen in quick intervals (it sounds like when you pronounce only the “v” in “very”, so imagine it sounds like “vvv.. vvv.. vvv..”). I thought this is most likely the wheel bearings but some research told me the flex disk may also cause a sound like that!
P.S. I heard these drive shaft flex disks referred to as a Guibo (particularly on BMWs).