MK5 Golf GTI
All Things Mk5 => Mk5 General Area => Topic started by: robert1 on June 05, 2018, 09:49:22 pm
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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
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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. :happy2:
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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.
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These symptoms are almost a carbon copy of my experience... as @shail (http://www.mk5golfgti.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=10709) 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.
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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
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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
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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!
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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
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can you upgrade to a better rack, is the mk6 better built?
Is there anything like the purple tag rack like in bmws?
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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
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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?
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it could breaking will transfer force through the axle to the rack the same as accelerating defiantly checking it.
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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
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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.
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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
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so just what someone on another forum suggested 'While stationary move steering wheel twitchy to both sides, like 5cm to one side then 5cm to the other, fast.'
i did this and, yes it knocks! with each change of direction, seems ok when doing it slow, as it if i just turn left to right lock to lock it doesn't noticeably do it but doing the short first turns does make a knock
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Replaced mine with a refurbed Gen3 rack too. Had bad knocking and eventually lost power steering.
I’d defo recommend new bolts when replacing.
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a quick video of the knocking inside and out
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Mine sounds the same. I've also had play in ball joint diagnosed - bit annoyed as these were replaced very recently.
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well atleast ive now found a way to make it do it constantly, that been most garages problem, they can hear it while driving but up on the ramp couldn't find a way to make it do it
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well atleast ive now found a way to make it do it constantly, that been most garages problem, they can hear it while driving but up on the ramp couldn't find a way to make it do it
So did the garage not just turn the wheel like you did in the video?? Would of thought they would do that first?
I did they do it and it didnt make the knocking noise?
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well atleast ive now found a way to make it do it constantly, that been most garages problem, they can hear it while driving but up on the ramp couldn't find a way to make it do it
So did the garage not just turn the wheel like you did in the video?? Would of thought they would do that first?
I did they do it and it didnt make the knocking noise?
well all 4 garages said they couldnt figure out a way to reproduce the knocking consistantly soo...
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well atleast ive now found a way to make it do it constantly, that been most garages problem, they can hear it while driving but up on the ramp couldn't find a way to make it do it
So did the garage not just turn the wheel like you did in the video?? Would of thought they would do that first?
I did they do it and it didnt make the knocking noise?
well all 4 garages said they couldnt figure out a way to reproduce the knocking consistantly soo...
Thats crazy would of been the first thing i would of done. I a thinking it might not of been making the noise as bad when they checked it i would be extremly surprised if any garage good or bad didnt at least try to turn the wheel to find a knocking in the front of the car its like option number 1
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well atleast ive now found a way to make it do it constantly, that been most garages problem, they can hear it while driving but up on the ramp couldn't find a way to make it do it
So did the garage not just turn the wheel like you did in the video?? Would of thought they would do that first?
I did they do it and it didnt make the knocking noise?
well all 4 garages said they couldnt figure out a way to reproduce the knocking consistantly soo...
Thats crazy would of been the first thing i would of done. I a thinking it might not of been making the noise as bad when they checked it i would be extremly surprised if any garage good or bad didnt at least try to turn the wheel to find a knocking in the front of the car its like option number 1
yeah, one garage overlooking it I can kinda understand, but not multiple, so can only imagine its getting worse, or because when you do it slow it hardly does it, but then wouldn't they try it fast? either way atleast I can slow them what its doing when I next go
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hi Rob,
my Touran does exactly what yours is doing in the video, but not really noticeable while driving! i wasn't targeting the steering knock but... I've replaced ball joints, bushes, a broken spring, and checked the tie rods while having the steering turned left and right - no play at all. had a 4 wheel laser alignment done too and knocking left and right still there, my GTI doesn't make this sound so pretty convinced its the rack mate (as much as i hate to admit)! but for now I'm not worried about the tourans rack. if it was my GTI i'd change it with the mind set if it doesn't fix it then at least i know i got a new rack lol :grin:
also... haven't had a chance to try this yet, but my cousins GTI had a proper weird creaky/knocky noise (not knocking bad though), i looked under in and around for ages trying to locate this noise... turned out the steering rack bolts wasn't tight enough! so before doing anything just check there tight first, sometimes its the simplest of things! and hope you get the problem sorted mate. cheers. shaun.
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its fixed!
so I got the rack replaced, and sat there turning the wheel side to side, no knocking, result I think, and expensive one but still result, then I drove off, and as I turned onto the main road "knock knock" my heart sunk! back to the garage and straight up on the ramps, year it was improved but still knocking, they looked and couldnt find anything at all, but noticed my control arms really rusty in the bush, all poly bushed, so they took them out, with some hammering! they where stuck tight, re lubed (or greased whatever you wanna call it) the bushes on it, put everything back together and its finally silent to drive! so just for anyone else out there, get these bushes checked too!
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its fixed!
so I got the rack replaced, and sat there turning the wheel side to side, no knocking, result I think, and expensive one but still result, then I drove off, and as I turned onto the main road "knock knock" my heart sunk! back to the garage and straight up on the ramps, year it was improved but still knocking, they looked and couldnt find anything at all, but noticed my control arms really rusty in the bush, all poly bushed, so they took them out, with some hammering! they where stuck tight, re lubed (or greased whatever you wanna call it) the bushes on it, put everything back together and its finally silent to drive! so just for anyone else out there, get these bushes checked too!
Glad you got it sorted! When mine was fixed a week or so ago, I was so relieved - the knocking was getting me down!
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Glad you got it sorted! When mine was fixed a week or so ago, I was so relieved - the knocking was getting me down!
I know what you mean, took the fun out of driving it having it making the noises every time you drove it, and I didnt really notice there being much play in the steering but it feel sooo much better to drive with the new one!
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A pic of the ones mentioned to be causing the near impossible to find noise makers? Would be good for future seekers. :drinking:
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A pic of the ones mentioned to be causing the near impossible to find noise makers? Would be good for future seekers. :drinking:
good point! ill take some pictures of everything over the weekend and make a more detailed post, hopefully will help someone one day :P
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Glad you fixed it Rob :happy2:
That does tell me that my Touran problem has to be the Rack then, as the poly bushes i fitted was obvs new and greased. Didn't make the noise better/worse! Thanks.
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My rack makes that same clunking noise when stationary. I can't hear any knocks or clunks when driving it though. Did you have any other symptoms, such as - tramlining on rough roads, needing lots of little corrections at motorway speeds to hold a straight line, and feeling unstable at 100+ speeds?
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hi Pud not sure if that question is for me.. but i don't really get that much tramblin or rocky road knock... a slight... but that due to my shocks need changing at some point (touran that is)
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Hi all,
I’m facing the same problem and had take it to my local vw dealer who has charged me £160 for a diagnostic to tell me “nothing wrong with the car as we have had an engineer checking it on the road”. Put it a ramp my self and noticed that the steering rod is playing. Anyone had seen or faced the same?
On another note, could you recommend a good vw specialist within the M25?
Thank you all
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I have had all major components been replaced on my gti from 2008 before detecting this loud knocking noise when I go on a sleeping policeman and the list is below. The car has got 84k miles only 🤨
Shock absorbers- went for top of the range: koni
Top mounts replaced
Drop links - replaced
Inner Rods - replaced
Ball mounts - replaced
Dog bone mounts these aluminum blocks with inner joints- replaced
Ah yes before i Forget I have replaced or upgraded DSG mount adding a flexi mount to it- done
All the above and yet again it still knocking. The most astonishing bit that every time throughout the above replacements I have had wheel alignment done and still not properly aligned with new bizarre noises when you are at a halt and you steer 30 degrees clock and anti clock 🤔
Any advice is highly appreciated and I hope I am not budging to the wrong subject
Thank you all 🙏
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The rack is very common, I’ve just replaced mine after refurbing my front suspension the knock was still there.
Cured by fitting a later gen 3 rack, sadly now the poly bushes I fitted to the arb are creaking all the time and it’s pissing me off, so I’ve got to drop the subframe again to put standard rubber bushes back in!
Bit of a nightmare to be honest.
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As above, my knocking was also cured by fitting a Gen 3 rack.
Gen 3 = MK6 and is what VW and most garages will fit if you take it in for that job. The Gen1/2 MK5 rack is so notoriously bad, a lot of refurbishers say "keep it" and add a £50 surcharge instead of returning your old one. They just don't want them :grin:
Another area that is often overlooked for steering play and noises is the steering column, which has 2 universal joints that can wear out. A slight bit of wear in those translates into a lot of slop and noise at the steering wheel, due to the leverage. If the steering is dead/vague and feels like it has a cm of nothingness, in spite of replacing absolutely EVERYTHING under there, chances are your column UJs are shot.
It never ends :doh: