S4 suspension clunking

[Richard van der Hoff]

For quite a while now, I've been chasing some clunking from the front 
suspension on my B5 S4, and I'd appreciate the list's wisdom on where to 
go with this.

The symptoms are that I'll often hear a clunk when turning the wheel at 
low speeds; also when going over speedbumps or even just cornering.

Basically the history is that a couple of years ago, the received wisdom 
was that it was probably the lower control arms, and I had both the 
front lower arms replaced; that didn't really help much. At the time 
most of the clunking seemed to be coming from the right-hand side, and I 
had the rear lower control arm replaced on the right-hand side. This 
seemed to help things for a while.

But the clunking's gradually been coming back, so recently I went to the 
local independent (not the same one that did the previous control arms). 
Naturally I suggested that there was a fourth lower control arm that 
might need replacing. But his opinion was that the control arms were 
solid, and suggested replacing the front shocks instead.

Now, it seems odd to me that shocks should be responsible for this. 
Perhaps he meant the rubber top-mount, and that he might as well replace 
the shocks while he was there. Not sure.

So, opinions? Is the shock in any way a likely candidate? Or should I go 
back to replacing control arms? And if so should I (a) just do the 
fourth lower arm (b) replace the upper arms too (c) accept that the 
other lower arms now have 15000 miles of (spirited, at times) driving on 
them and replace those too (d) all of the above? Obviously, the labour 
for having my suspension repeatedly torn apart and rebuilt is beginning 
to add up...

Thanks in advance!

Richard