steering groand and moans

[chutia]

"steering" or front suspension groans: has anyone heard groans from their steering when moving dead off-center (I never turn the steering without the car rolling)? It sounds like something in the steering mechanism is going to come apart. My car is never run on the track or "mistreated." It's kind of a scary sound...

[sturs6]

You may not want to hear a reply from an ex-RS6 owner but... I had this same problem when I had my car and they tried all sorts of things to fix it to no avail. Mine occured when I made slight turns and when I went up small inclines with the wheel turned for instance entering the driveway.
Good luck with it and welcome to the boards it is good to hav eyou hear. I hope they have since come up with a solution for your problem.
:cheers:
Stuart

[chutia]

Originally posted by sturs6
You may not want to hear a reply from an ex-RS6 owner but... I had this same problem when I had my car and they tried all sorts of things to fix it to no avail. Mine occured when I made slight turns and when I went up small inclines with the wheel turned for instance entering the driveway.
Good luck with it and welcome to the boards it is good to hav eyou hear. I hope they have since come up with a solution for your problem.
:cheers:
Stuart

I'm actually that you took the trouble to respond, and absolutely respect any comment from an ex-rs6 owner; they are as valid as anything else...but did you sell yours b/c you got sick and tired of problems that could not be solved to your satisfaction or just moved on to another car?? I've had a good bit of "racy" cars, they all have their issues; this one, FOR WHAT IS ALLEGEDLY MEANT TO BE A DAILY DRIVER, seems to have just too many. But one heck of a thrill when you put your gas pedal down!!

[gregoryindiana]

And i agree it is a very disconcerting sound.

For whatever reason, after hearing it about 3 times, each time in the driveway, with sharp steering angles at low speeds, it has not recurred in about 9 months.

It seemed to be independent of whether the car was cold or hot. I thought that it might have been some small bubbles in the power steering fluid, that may have purged themselves.

Do a search for "steering noise", or "steering groan" and some of the old threads addressing this issue should come up.

[chutia]

Thanks very much. This is a great board/blog; very helpful and informed owners>>>
I love the performance of this car (I'm the master of the obvious, eh?!), but, boy oh boy, it's a "thrill" a day with new and novel "thing" that happen with this car. Today's latest and greatest is that the transmission decided it did not want to downshift because the weather got summery; well, then, it decided to downshift after all. Damn strange stuff; just get the feeling that this could be a spooky brittle car. But then I have read where owners use this as a daily driver........hhhmmmm.

[sturs6]

I used mine as a daily driver... 35,000 miles in 1 year. It was my first performance car and I was unaware of the issues mainly small and I bought another after the RS6 and wished I would have never done that... but anyway. Enjoy your car!!! I know I did!!!

[JAXRS6]

A steering groan or any sound is hard to analyze on a forum, so I'm not sure my groan was the same as yours. I would not characterize mine as sounding like anything was coming apart; it was just a groan. On other cars I would hear a similar sound when turning the wheel all the way to one side, but on the RS6 it would show up as I left my home, turning right to accelerate.

In any case it was resolved temporarily by bleeding the power steering lines and replenishing power steering fluid. Another victim of heat, it seems. Symptoms can return, which means bleeding & replenishing fluid again.

Assuming your groan is the same as mine, of course, and that's just a guess.:mech: FYI More on this was posted on at least one earlier thread about the power steering groan.