[A4] Front tire *thump* & brake pads (Richard Hurt)

[Greg Megara]

Richard, I may have experienced the same thing, although it's hard to be
100% sure at this point. I also had to remove a nail from my tire, and while
this was nothing new, I had some trouble getting the lug bolts off. As
usual, I would break out a length of pipe and use that as a cheater bar when
getting the lug bolts to start turning freely. After fixing the tire, I was
getting a thumping noise and it wasn't until I tried to remove the tire
again that the problem became clear. I ended up actually breaking off a lug
bolt flush with the wheel hub. That thumping noise I was getting was in fact
that very same lug nut bolt having a crack in it from breaking it free using
the cheater bar, plus the fact that my bolts weren't 100% tight (see below).
I ended up having to replace the hub.

What I ended up figuring out is that there was a manufacturing defect in my
hubs (I don't know if anyone else has had this problem). The tapping of the
hubs was not done all the way through and so the bolts threads were grinding
into the hub. I had to buy (from mcmaster.com) a tap to clean all the other
threads on my hubs. I ended up getting metal shavings from the front hubs,
the rear hubs took little to no effort to run the tap through (and
considering I never had any problem removing my rear wheels, it didn't
surprise  me.)

--Greg

>I just had a nail removed from my front tire and now I'm getting a
*thump* -
>sometimes.  I don't really think the two are related and I just removed the
>wheel again to make sure there was no foreign matter or obvious broken
>suspension pieces.  The wheel was tight and everything checks out OK.
>However, I have noticed that my brakes have been making noise and getting a
>little short on pad, so it's probably time for a brake job - at least in
the
>front.

>About the *thump*.  As near as I can tell it seems to happen when I change
>velocity and direction.  For instance, I'll pulled out of a parking lot
onto
>a busy street and heard/felt it.  There was a small curb and it seemed to
>coincide with going over that.  I also get a slight "give" when I use the
>brakes sometimes.  It's like they stop working for half a second and then
>they are normal.  I don't really know if the two instances are related or
>not but both seem to be coming from the recently repaired wheel.  Any
clues?