stan211

Its a knocking style noise, best approximation would be a worn out sway bar bushing as you are going over bumps.

taxman1

I have a 2012 production A4 Avant P+ with Sports Package and have a grinding noise I can hear when backing out of my garage in the am. My wife has remarked on this several times as I left for work or when we were going somewhere and she had not gotten in the car yet. Seems to me like the pads and rotors are grinding but I haven't gone in for my 5k service yet and haven't bothered to make a special trip to the dealer.
This will be high on my list when I do.
I also find this engine noisier on start up than either my very early production B7 A4 (January 2005) or late production B7 A4 (February 2008).
Interesting to read about this issue.

wlaudi

Here's the update. I brought the car in today and they agreed to take another crack at finding and fixing the noise, however, they believe they tried everything and have no idea what to try. One bit of interesting news. The last time I brought the car in, they put on REGULAR a4 struts...not the ones for the sport suspension...and the noise went away. When they replaced my struts with brand new sports suspension struts...the noise returned. They swapped TWO different pairs of brand new sports suspension struts and the noise continued. They told me that the struts are different and they can't let me drive off with the wrong struts for my car.

What I'm concluding from this is that the struts used in the 2011 a4's with sport suspensions is defective. The service tech didn't disagree with me, but said Audi USA will never acknowledge it and there's little he can do. He explained that a similar example was that a number of recent Audi's burn oil and that it has to be topped off, often in as little as a few thousand miles. However, Audi refused to acknowledge or admit this was a real problem. Eventually, they agreed it was a defect and started fixing cars so the oil would stop burning.

He told me that because so few sports suspension a4's are purchased, it's unlikely that Audi will admit their error and even if they did it could be 2-3 years before they do. I find this ridiculous for a $40,000 car to sound like a 1975 Buick. However, there's very little that I or the Audi service department can do. If Audi is using defective parts, and then replacing them with new defective parts, what can I do?

snagitseven

Call AOA yourself and request to be escalated to a senior support specialist. Have all your service info handy. Be polite but firm. Don't get angry and go on the attack. It will work in your favor.

uberwgn

Interesting to hear this, WL. It aligns with what I suggested in post #13 in this thread about there being an entire batch of bad struts produced. I guess that means we can all go out and find aftermarket struts that will work with the sport pkg and have them installed

uberwgn

My car does the same when it's stone-cold, and it does sound like grinding brakes on rusty rotors. I asked my sales person about it and he says it's the car running some kind of purge cycle. He said it's REALLY loud when they move the car out of the showroom.

My car does it for about 30 seconds and the transmission must be in gear.

jfo

This is most likely the secondary air pump, part of the emissions system. They all make this noise and it can indeed seem quite loud. As you noted, you can sit there in park/neutral but it only kicks in when you put it in gear.

stan211

Appears that the struts are indeed the culprits. I wonder if they would be willing to perform free labor to replace them, I am willing to buy new Bilsteins out of pocket

stan211

This sounds like a real issue that no one is willing to address. I wonder if a group action pledge would make them reconsider, probably not...

NavSnipe

I have a similar noise when the car is cold and starts at high idle. If I shift into gear (D or R) I get a roaring noise. A tech told me this is the torque converter in the transmission making the noise due to the pressure against the driveline when the engine is at a high idle. Once the engine is at normal idle the noise is no longer present. The tech told me this is normal.