Knocking driving me insane! - FIXED!

[robert1]

Hey

well ive had a knocking on the front drivers side for AGES now that its driving me mental, it seems to get worse the hotter it is, so setting off on a cold morning to work, wont start knocking until basically at work, but leaving in the evening after its been sat in the sun all day the knocking is there basically straight away. it mainly happens when the car is uneven, so when going over a bump where one side is higher than the other or when turning into a sloped road, you can sometimes get it to knock when accelerating or breaking really hard, but has to be hard! and even then that's not 100%

ive had 4 different garages check this, and all have herd it but none able to identify it, all just said its a weird one

I have tried top mounts and bearings, drop links, dogbone mount insert, and subframe bolts and spacers, and nothing has changed, one think I have noticed is that when driving with one drop link missing, the knocking was ALOT worse and more frequent (this wasn't done for long just had an issue when changing my old ones)

I had seen someone with a similar issue and it was there subframe misaligned, but I got them to check this today and no that's fine! this one is really getting to me now

I have VWR Street sport + coil overs, adjustable ARB, adjustable drop links, and nearly all poly bushed, this was done around 3 years ago and only just started recently, the mods done most recently are a turbo back exhaust and intercooler

thanks in advance for any help!

p.s. I have asked if its possibly CV joint and always get told there fine

[chigmuss]

I'm sure there'll be some more in depth diagnosis but from what I've discovered recently, take off the wheel and give the inside of the rim good clean. Are there any traces of grease? Possibly a shot cv joint on the inner or outer joint, and its the bearings inside the races giving you your noise. It's not that difficult to undo the hub nut and release the drive shaft so you can check how much rotation is in the inner/outer joints.
Good luck with getting to the bottom of it though.

[shail]

I have a knock at low speed over uneven ground. Had new suspension, top mounts, console bushes, drop links.   Just been diagnosed as knackered steering rack - rack has movement up and down inside the rack housing.  Easy for a garage to check. 

[Ripstop]

These symptoms are almost a carbon copy of my experience... as @shail  says it's probably going to be your rack. Seems like its getting more common on our cars now. I just had mine replaced with refurb Gen 3 rack and the problem as far as I can tell has gone away.

To be fair it wasn't that easy to detect unless you looked really close and the car was on a hoist. The actual play was small compared to the clunking you hear when driving slowly over bumps or cobbles or a worn road surface.

[shail]

Have a look at my thread, shows a short video of the play in rack

http://www.mk5golfgti.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,116972.msg1109097.html#msg1109097

[GitFlog]

I think it sounds like your steering rack as well not cheap.

what year is your car the early racks are not very good you can replace them with the mk6 ones but its £££'s

[shail]

Mines a 2007 car.  Previous owner had rack replaced under warranty in 2009, and I've just had confirmation that VW will replace it again under my extended warranty.

As for costs, my local independent have quoted £650, which includes a (i assume) a refurbished rack and wheel alignment.  From VW i've read that a rack is over £1000 for the rack!

[robert1]

joys, but thanks everyone, just a quick question, IF it is the rack, would this change with temperature? and would it knock on heavy accelerating and breaking?

I think it sounds like your steering rack as well not cheap.

what year is your car the early racks are not very good you can replace them with the mk6 ones but its £££'s

and its Jan 2006 about to hit 140,000

[bobby_fodge]

can you upgrade to a better rack, is the mk6 better built?

Is there anything like the purple tag rack like in bmws?

[GitFlog]

joys, but thanks everyone, just a quick question, IF it is the rack, would this change with temperature? and would it knock on heavy accelerating and breaking?

I think it sounds like your steering rack as well not cheap.

what year is your car the early racks are not very good you can replace them with the mk6 ones but its £££'s

and its Jan 2006 about to hit 140,000

Yeah it would knock when turning and accelerating as your putting much more train on it.

You can get a mk6 rack i think you have to change the wiring harness and vagcom it but dont quote me on that i havent had to do this yet so not really looked into it,

I think you will have a gen 1 rack not 100% on that

[robert1]

joys, but thanks everyone, just a quick question, IF it is the rack, would this change with temperature? and would it knock on heavy accelerating and breaking?

I think it sounds like your steering rack as well not cheap.

what year is your car the early racks are not very good you can replace them with the mk6 ones but its £££'s

and its Jan 2006 about to hit 140,000

Yeah it would knock when turning and accelerating as your putting much more train on it.

You can get a mk6 rack i think you have to change the wiring harness and vagcom it but dont quote me on that i havent had to do this yet so not really looked into it,

I think you will have a gen 1 rack not 100% on that

I mean accelerating or breaking in a dead straight like (not turning at all) it will knock
and would it be something most indys can do? if the harness and vagcom is needed?

[GitFlog]

it could breaking will transfer force through the axle to the rack the same as accelerating defiantly checking it.

[robert1]

it could breaking will transfer force through the axle to the rack the same as accelerating defiantly checking it.

that's true, any kinda testing you can do or is it just getting under it and looking?


and would temperature make any difference normally? like mine gets worse the hotter it is

[Ripstop]

If it is the rack I would go for a refurb Gen 3 rack like mine. I wouldn't put an old refurb'd Gen 2 rack back on as you could be back where you started. I had a quick chat with Alex and the Gen 3's appear to be better built. I think when you consider the original power steering racks cover all golf mk5 models the wider, larger wheeled GTI's are tougher on the wear rates and potentially more prone to fail. But thats speculation of course. Yes you will need a new loom from VW and it will need reprogramming. The position sensor is now in the rack not the steering column.

As for the actual feel of the issue, somedays it was awful, loud and badly clunky but generally only on bad surfaces at speeds from 5 to 35 mph beyond that there was little noise. Turning or braking didnt change the problem and it was all down to road surfaces. Temperature or weather did seem to influence the level of clunkiness if that makes sense.

[Dan_FR]

I had what you describe, mine was the steering rack. I freshened up the whole front end before resorting to the rack too. Absolutely no play anywhere on the rack, had it checked many times by many people/garages, nobody could find anything wrong with it, yet it knocked all the time over uneven ground.

At the time, I didn't know it was a rack so took a punt on a very low mileage Gen 2 replacement which has so far paid off, but definitely consider the Gen 3 as a replacement