s4boosted

I have been experiencing a front end clunk that happens when braking hard or accelerating. it also happens when turning at low speeds or when going from first to reverse and vice versa. The sound comes from the passenger side front...

ideas?

i already replaced the axle.

danbbb

You have very good timing! Check this out...

http://www.ecstuning.com/Audi-B5_S4-.../OEM/ES337518/

They have a CRAZY good deal on an entire lower suspension kit, front/rear lower for both sides for 100 bucks. To answer your question it's most likely the balljoint which is part of the lower control arm. I would replace everything at the same time especially considering you would usually pay 100 for one arm on one side. Good luck!

-Dan

eiss4

I am experiencing this as well and suspected it is somewhere in the suspension. I don't mind changing out the lower control arm since i can do it myself but when I put the front end up on jacks and try shaking the tire I can't replicate the sound. I just want to make sure thats the problem before i go buying a bunch of parts. Is there a way to diagnose the suspension to pin point the problem....any tricks?

TIA

abduln

As others have noted, it's very likely to be your control arms. But just an alternate possibility. A few months after I bought my used B5 S4, it developed a clunking sound whenever I would start to brake or accelerate in a sudden manner... It was the sudden weight transfer that was the trigger.

Anyway, it turned out to be my drive train stabilizer , where one of the large nuts were not torqued to spec. I had checked it already on my own, but not with a torque wrench. It was already super tight, but again not to spec. This out of tolerance condition was enough to cause the clunk, but wasn't anything I could discern.

Once I took it to the dealer under warrenty service, I was informed that the DTS will likely do this if not torqued within spec... Can't just hand tighten it, have to torque it.

Maybe this is not the problem, but assuming you have the ability to measure the torque here it may be free or at least cheap to check this.

Good luck.

danbbb

You know, I'm glad this thread was revived. I forgot to come back and post a follow up. It was NOT the control arms on my car after all. For me it ended up being a bad strut mount. It made all the same noises as a bad balljoint so it took me a while to figure it out. Not that it's real easy to get to, but I would check that before you go replacing all of your suspension like I did...

-Dan

eiss4

Thanks guys I'll keep you posted as to what it ends up being. So far I found that one of the threaded holes in (1 0f 3)my driver side top strut bracket (cast aluminum triangular piece) was striped. It seems it was over torqued by the previous owner. I have replaced that but the sound continues. I will check the dts and the front strut mount.

trichard3000

I have a very slight version of the symptom described and I just changed out all of my control arms and suspension. Just wondering if the OP figured out the cause.