mcleanda

I just wanted to survey RS4 owners out there to see if anyone else has experienced this issue.
I have owned my RS4 since June 2006 and this is the first year that I have experienced this issue.
I live in NJ and recently noted that when my car is left outside overnight when I first back it out of a parking space and lock the steering all the way over either in reverse or moving forward you experience a very noticeable vibration and noise in the steering/front axle. Once the car or tires are warmed u you cannot replicate the problem. This is at very low speeds not under real driving conditions eg backing out of a parking space where you need to make a 90degree turn. It only happens in the first few seconds of the turn.

I have taken it to the dealer 3 times and initially they found my steering was loose so they retorqued all the connections and told me that should fix it but I was still able to replicate the problem.
Eventually I had to leave my car at the dealership for the 3rd time and then drive there 1st thing in the am and then 3 of us piled into the car with me driving to demonstrate the issue. One of the service techs I believe came from Audi as he spoke with a german accent and immediately on hearing the vibration mentioned that there is a TSB on the R8 that addresses this issue and this is normal behavior for the steering on these cars.
In order to test this they will keep my car garaged over Xmas and in a warm environment and see if they can replicate it, according to the TSB this will occur in cold temperatures ( our overnite temps in NJ last few weeks have been < 30) or if the car is parked for an extended period.
Will let you know what happens next week

s4master1

there's a similar situation with the 05 and newer a6 models specially the 4.2 engine
problem is in the rear differential input shaft bearing, However changing the oil helps a lot, audi develop a new oil for this or you could use the oil uses in the M series cars

spagolli94

I had this exact same issue and it showed up when the cold weather arrived about a month ago. I remember the first time it happened. I backed out of a tight space, then cut the wheel all the way to the left and started to slowly accelerate. I heard and felt a loud thumping - almost like I had a flat tire, even though the tire was fine. I drove for 10 minutes and pulled into a gas station to try to replicate the issue but could not.

It was only when both the weather and car were cold that I could replicate the issue. So I took it into the shop with a list of other things to do, including 35k services and mounting winter tires. The dealer said they were indeed able to replicate the issue and during the service they took a look but didn't notice anything immediately obvious. The next morning (the service had been done and new tires had been mounted at this point) they tried to replicate the issue again and were going to focus on a fix for the thumping issue.

But with the new winter tires on, they were unable to replicate the issue. So they claimed that the issue was caused by the old summer tires, which don't do well in cold temps. At first, I thought this was a crazy BS cover up because they couldn't find a fix. Rolling at 5 mph in a dry parking lot, how could you possibly feel the difference between summer and winter tires? Crazy. But I've had the car back for two weeks now and have not felt the slow speed thumping vibration since, so it does appear to be fixed.

Not sure how it got fixed, but I'm guessing maybe it was accidentally fixed during the service (maybe tightening some random bolt fixed it). Who knows, maybe the tires were the fix after all???

So are you still on summer tires or have you put your winters on for the season?

mcleanda

Thanks for your reply,

I am still on my summer tires, tend not to drive my car in the winter.
I will be getting new tires in the spring so see if this resoles the issue.
Just to bring you upt to date after having my car for nearly a week and the dealer consulting with Audi the "official" assessment is that this is normal behaviour for the RS4.
I will be keeping an eye on it to see it it becomes progressively more obvious.

spagolli94

In the spring, it might go away regardless of the tires because temps will be warmer. My dealer never said it was normal, but did give the suspension and steering a thorough check - came up empty. After the tire change, the issue went away and it became even harder to troubleshoot something which they could no longer replicate. I haven't heard the issue since (been a few weeks now), so at this point I'm not worried about it. No sense in trying to fix something that's no longer broken.

Please keep us posted if you ever find a real fix for the issue. I just can't believe something like that is "normal."