Jager

Howdy folks,
Any help diagnosing this one would help me out a bunch. A few weeks back, my car started making a fairly unpleasant noise while driving my car in first gear. It doesn't happen in any other gear, including reverse, as far as I can tell. It also doesn't make the sound while I'm sitting in neutral and just revving the enging. It makes my engine sound like my girlfriend's '84 volvo. It's one of those sounds that are difficult to put into words. The engine just sound like an old volvo It might be described as a painfully loud pinging, or a extremely loud pulsing. The noise also doesn't seem to go away when the car warms up. At first I thought it might just have had some bad gas or something - but now several tanks later it isn't going away. I also thought it might have been a low-on-oil problem, but I've been doing a good job of monitoring the oil level since I bought the car. The noise started happening suddenly and doesn't seem to be increasing over time or decreasing. Any ideas? Anything to try to help diagnose?

As soon as the noise happened I made an appointment to see the dealer, but Bay Area people will relate - it took 1.25 months to get an appointment. Luckily, that's coming up at the end of the week - but I'd like to go in with some ammo/suggestions as to what it could be.

I've poked around the archives with little luck on this one... and to help make it a little more dramatic for me, I'm at 47k miles with my warranty expiring just a scant 3k miles away. (Sounds like I'm going to be looking into extended warranty options real soon)

Help?
-Jager
A4 99.5 2.8QM that's only happy when it's going fast and complains when it's going slow.

Er-excess-4

The problem was pinpointed to the transmission. The dealer had to consult with Audi rep to get the go ahead to re-work 1st gear in my tranny. They did and I've had no problem since. I noticed my problem when at a stop light on a divided 4 lane road(2 lanes in each direction) with a concrete barrier/divider. The noise really resonated of the concrete divider. It also was just in 1st gear. I hope this helps!!

EricBell

They were "very chewed up" according to my service rep. My indicator was when my car started having a supercharger whine sound in first and slightly in second gear.
My service rep also told me the Audi Tech hinted that they might not replace it again under warranty. Seems he thinks the tranny was abused even though the clutch and every other component were in very good condition.
Good luck on resolving your issue.

Jager

Well, 2.5 weeks later I finally got the car back. They did, in fact, end up replacing the first gear - and everything is running perfectly.
Here were the tech notes:
"Confirm complaint of the clicking noise. The trany needs to come out and taken apart. Removed trany. Took the trany apart to find problem. Found First gear on the input shaft and output bad, worn. Ordered all parts completely disassemble the transmission and replaced first gear, syncro, and input shaft. Reassemble Transmission and set up."
So there you have it.
Just for fun, I asked how much the repairs would have cost had I not been (just barely) under warranty - parts, $2000, labor $2000. Youch... $4000.... Consider that another vote for an extended warranty.
Hats off to Mike @ Carlsen Audi in Palo Alto for getting this thing back in tip-top shape.
-Jager
99.5 A4 2.8QM with just a few thousand miles of warranty left.