ried

Recently, I was decelerating from ~25mph while making a left turn. The car made an enormous metallic "clunk" as I was turning, and it felt/sounded like a metallic rod broke somewhere, or as if a weld had snapped.

The road was clear, I hadn't driven over anything. I looked under the hood and the car, but there was no obvious visible damage. But here's what did happen...

When the car is decelerating and shifts from 3rd to 2nd gear, it now clunks when it engages 2nd. If I'm in a parking lot and doing ~10mph in 2nd gear, I can coast for a second, then gently step on the accelerator and it clunks when it re-engages 2nd. The clunking is most apparent when it's cold, but it happens all the time.

In addition, there's more vibration throughout the drivetrain in all gears now.


I took it to the local dealer, and they put it up on the lift. They suspected a transmission mount might have snapped, based on my description. However, everything looked fine and I took it home with no repairs performed. So here's where I'm stuck...

That 2nd gear clunk annoys the heck out of me. It may not prevent the car from driving, but I'm worried that it may lead to an eventual transmission failure.

I just passed 35K miles. When I had the 35K service done a couple of months ago, it drove like new. Now the drivetrain feels sloppy and, well, clunky.

Should I take it back to the dealer and point out the clunk while driving? Is there any way they'd fix that so it's back to normal before a complete transmission failure occurs?

UPDATE: Please see the update on Page 2 of this thread, where I mention the subframe bolts.

tboned

of course the dealer will be happy to not fix it until after your warranty expires, and its your choice to let them do it or not.

shlike

....... how dealerships work. Dealership service departments thrive on warranty work. They are reimbursed from the manufacturer for warranty work. Without warranty work, most dealership service departments would not be profitable.

Stefano Scalia

Sounds like the J-bar or johnson bar. should be an easy fix

ried

Very funny.

qfrog Ti20

^Truth

SpeedTriple

seems to be reproducible. Also, you can drive another A3 as a reference point. Maybe you're just becoming more sensitive to the sounds that your car makes. I do get a clunking sound sometimes when downshifting, but it's not very noticeable.

ried

Will do exactly that next week and report back.

flem.audi

I'm a technician, anytime there is a noise I prefer to drive with the customer. 9 times out of 10, either they can't reproduce the noise with me in the car, or I hear a different noise than the customer does when they choose not to test drive with me. So the problem cannot be fixed.

I would drive with the Technician until you can reproduce the noise. Quattro? FWD? 2.0t? 3.2l? Does it make the same does noises when you manually use the shift paddles?

ried

I've become a bit oversensitive to all of the various sounds that the car makes while driving. However, there is one particular sound that is easily reproducible, and somewhat jarring, which had me concerned.

When cruising at ~10mph, ease off the accelerator and coast for a coupe of seconds, then re-engage the accelerator (fairly gently, don't stomp on it). Occasionally, the clutch engages with a clunk that you can both hear and feel through the chassis.

The shop foreman and I went out for a drive, and he had me try to reproduce the sound with manual shift. Nada, couldn't do it.

It seems that, in automatic mode, you can just catch the DSG right when the clutches aren't engaged in 1st, 2nd or 3rd, as it tries to anticipate what you're going to do. Easing back on the throttle at just the right speed will re-engage 2nd and make the sound.

No big deal. It's healthy, he says. My dealer's been amazing to work with, so I'm confident in his opinion - and in retrospect I feel a bit like a paranoid hypochondriac.

EDIT: See my next and final post on page 2.