[s-cars] Front Suspension clunking (still)

[Rich Assarabowski]

Serge:

I'm another victim of driving a "clunker" S4 with Bilsteins.  Mine were fine
for several months after installation, then the clunks started (both left
and right).  This despite the fact that just about every bushing and link in
my front-end is new and they car feels tight as a drum.  I tightened up the
strut collars (that secure the strut to the housing) and the clunk
disappeared for about a week and then reappeared.  Ray Tomlinson suggested
in an e-mail to me that it could be the strut clunking around in the
housing, in his case he shimmed the strut with some fender washers to solve
his problem.  Others (Neil Swanson et.al.) have found the struts themselves
to be defective.  

The clunking most noticeable when the wheels drop into a pothole, speed
bumps are the worst.  In my case it's definitely up and down, no difference
on side-to-side.

I finally removed the top nuts securing the strut rod to the car (with the
weight of the car on the strut!!!) and let the rod extend fully out.  Moving
the rod side to side shows very noticeable play of the rod within the strut
and an accompanying clunk.  The strut itself appears to be secure within the
housing.  There's no question that the struts are  defective.  I didn't even
bother checking the other side.

The good news is that all this can be done without disassmbling the
struts/springs, so it's an easy check to make.  If the strut rods turn out
to be OK, you can now easily get at the collar to tighten it before
reassembling, if needed.  You might even consider Ray's suggestion of
shimmying up the struts within the housing if that's what you think the
problem might be.  The even better news is that Bilsteins have a lifetime
warranty so this should be taken care of by Bilstein.  

Anyone have any experience with Bilstein warranty returns/repairs?  

Since I have H&R V8 springs, it's a good opportunity to revalve the
replacement Bilstein struts which will better match the H&R spring rates.
For Eibachs the consensus seems to be that the stock valving is OK.  

BTW, anyone have any experience with how to specify the revalved shocks (10%
increase in compression / 30% increase in rebound / low-speed vs. high-speed
compression/rebound, etc.)???

-- Rich A.

    

-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
[mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of Serge Filanovsky
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 12:20 PM
To: pkrasusky at ups.com; S-CAR-List at audifans.com
Subject: Re: [s-cars] Front Suspension clunking (still)

Steve,

FWIW I have also been struggling with the dreaded front end cluncking though
I think my case is more extreme. Slow speed pavement irregularities (of
which there are plenty on my local Brooklyn "roads") make so much noise that
the car sounds and feels like an old beat up taxi. This started happening
after Bilstein/Eibach/2B camber plate install a few months back.
Interestingly, the Bilsteins were installed first with stock springs (don't
ask) and though I only drove the car less that 100 miles, I heard no noises
(other than the axle bolt that, ahhemm... Bell Audi...Rahway, NJ ... failed
to torque down properly). I had my regular mechanic install the Eibachs and
the 2B plates. That¹s when the noises really started.

At first I thought it was the plate (only one side seemed to make noise).
Indeed, the spherical bearing was loose in the black slider housing, it was
not seated firmly against the large circlip (about 1mm of movement, my
unmeasured guesstimate). 2B sent a replacement, it did not solve the
problem, Ken said to torque down on the top strut mount nut (44 lb/ft) which
I did, no help. 

Talking to folks at S//Fest I now suspect the inserts are flopping around
inside the housing tubes. Thanks again, Bell Audi, I will be ripping the
whole mess apart, as soon as I can find a place to do it. Side-of-street
garage has been deemed inadequate for this chore.


Serge Filanovsky

95.5 S6 cluncky Avant





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