Phooey27

Hi all, I am hoping that someone may be able to help me here. I'm pretty new to the site so please don't hold that against me...

I think I had better start from the beginning. I have a 2010 A3 8P 2.0 TFSI S-tronic Black Edition with 84,700 on the clock and have owned it since January 2016. A few months in and the turbo was removed as the wastegate actuator was basically worn to the point that the piston had warped the hole surrounding it, causing a rattle. This was filled, re drilled and a new piston was made. Job done.

Shortly afterward a strange intermittent knocking occurred from the o/s front end. It first happened after a massive rain shower whilst on the motorway, cruising about 70mph and 2000 rpm. Since then I have heard the noise mainly going over rough surfaces or potholes, but not going up speed bumps. Now the knocking noise seems to change in speed if you like depending on the surface I am travelling on, as in when the noise starts it is not a constant revolution, nor is it speed dependant. It does not increase in velocity the faster or slower I go. It is almost like there is something loose in the engine bay that is knocking against something else when I go over rough surface. However I can go over a piece of road one day and no noise, the car feels solid. I can go over the same piece of road the following day and clunk clunk clunk. There is no consistency to it. When I hear the clunk I can also feel it through the steering wheel.

The noise is a knock when inside the cabin with the windows up, however when the windows are down and I go over a pothole or rough road surface you actually hear the knock as a metallic clunk from the front end. The shocks make there usual psss noise, but there is a definite metallic clunk, almost like the exhaust is hitting something. It's not a tinny heat shield noise, it is more substantial than that.

Now, the car has been back to the garage that repaired the turbo, and they have been over everything to no avail. Since then I have had 3 (yes 3!) independent mechanics, all of whom are good friends of mine, extensively look at the suspension and engine bay, exhaust mounts etc and they cannot find anything. After long searches on the net the nearest sound I can find close to the noise I am hearing is from worn anti roll bar drop links. So I changed them and guess what, the noise disappeared for a few days then came back.

The car is now at my local Audi dealer, where I took a Tech out for a road test. Fearing that my A3 would not play ball as it usually does when someone is in the car trying to hear it, to my surprise the knocking started. Puzzled, the tech said we will concentrate in the o/s first. Well, after 9 days of being in, and no-one returning my calls I had a little moan at them as I did not know what the hell was going on. The service advisor manager called me back and basically said they have not yet found it but noticed the droplinks had been change and were not original Audi parts (I put Lemforder links on).

After discussing this with him and stating that if it were the droplinks surely it would make the noise whenever I went over the same piece of road, but it doesn't necessarily, he agreed and said he would get the Master Tech on it.

Well the car has been in for 2 weeks now and I can say with a fair amount of certainty that Audi will come back and say they cannot find anything...

If there is anyone out there that has heard of, or experience anything similar I would be over the moon to hear about it, purely for the sake of my sanity. With two young kids I am starting to wonder if the car is safe enough to drive with them in it, and admittedly I am quite **** about noises that should not be there, however this is completely doing my head in and the not knowing what is causing it is making things worse.

Just to prove I am indeed not imagining the smallest of noises, I have many clips demonstrating the knocking inside that cabin with the windows up, however am struggling to attach one.

Many thanks in advance guys