Yet another frontend knocking thread

[puna]

Getting this knocking/clunking from the front end of the car. It is quite frequent and is hard to recreate, just simply driving causes it and nothing specific (like going over bumps, steering left or right etc). It seems to happen more when driving on an incline or decline. It feels quite central and knocking on or near the firewall. I can feel the knock under my foot on the foot/pedal rest on the left each time it happens.

I appreciate describing a sound isn't very helpful, so I'll upload a clip to YouTube this evening which should help. Edit -

Annoyingly it only started happening after coming out of a dealers when they were investigating AC problems. I've checked all the AC pipes and nothing is loose. I'd prefer not to take it back to them.

The car is a DSG MK5 GTI with 66k miles on it. No accidents and no suspension changes. All the bushes look good as well, nothing seems to be loose under the car. The nearside CV boot has split, but this has just recently happened.

The only thing that I think might help is to replace some/all of the subframe bolts. Possibly the ECS subframe spacers.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Octoparrot]

Possibly the steering rack on its way out?

[pudding]

Agreed, probably the rack if you can feel a knock through the floor.

Subframe movement usually only occurs during slow speed manoeuvres with a lot of steering lock, and is a clunk/crack/click typw noise that isn’t normal felt in the car.

The problem is VW didn’t upgrade the same generic 1.4 thru R32 steering rack to cope with the extra stresses GTIs/R32s/GT TDIs put on it, therefore it doesn’t last.  If the original rack survives past 100k without knocking, it’s doing well!