So, I got in my car for work this morning and started 'er up. Could hear the belt chirpin a little. When I first turned the wheel I got vibration (da da da da da) Kinda stuttering in the column as well as little squeaks. As long as I have had this car the steering has been sticky sometimes on slow neutral turns. I know this rack problem is common but just wondering if it's acting up in the cold is a warning that its gonna seize up?

 

could be low on ps fluid. mine once stuck a little bit and made a little bit of chirping, then i put in some more fluid and it was fine.

 

Level is good and new vac lines

 

Bad outer tie rod end?

 

hmmmm....squeaking in the front is usually control arms/tie rod ends....

as far as cold starts, the car will usually shudder a bit while turning at low RPMs til the car warms up....

if you have been having steering problems...it probably wouldn't hurt to toss in some new fluid...I think it recomended to change the fluid every 2 years or so...I do the turkey baster trick....basically once a month I siphon out all the fluid in my p/s resevoir and then fillit up with new fluid...the idea is that i am slowly revitalizing the fluid....

I just picked up a haydon a/t cooler and when I do my fmic I am going to drain the p/s system completely and then hook up my new cooler (the stock one is a joke if you ask me) and then give it a fresh top off of new fluid....

when I fisrt bought my car my steering was super stiff, and then i found out that i was super low on p/s fluid, when I filled it up to the max line my steering became effortless...

as far as my front end squeak, it was from all this hot dry weather...plus the car is 10 years old...fo I did new upper and lower control arms and 80% of the front suspension noise dissapeared...the other 20% is coming from the bushings on my front sway bar....last week I bathed all the bushings in oil, but it was just a temporary fix...the squeak is now back, but I am just going to live with it till I get the $ together for some H-sport sways....

well, I hope someting in there helped a bit....

gl!

-sidenote....about 6 months ago I had a chirp on start-up and it turned out that the tensioner bolts had rattled loose....that is another thought...if the tensioner failed I woulda been SOL

 

Sorry should have been clearer. The noise was only at idle so not control arm. Now your scarin me bro... Tensioner crossed my mind.

 

yeah...I took mine to my local audi tech for the start up squeak and apparently santa monica audi (the people I had just taken my car to to do timming belt and cam seals) did not tighten down my tensioner....

they also put one of my cams in a tooth off (i drove it like that for 30k...lol), which robbed me of about 20hp...and the cam seals which i paid audi of SM to do also failed a year later ($666 down the drain )...so, the first and only time I ever took my car to the stealership...they literally stole over two grand from me, robbed my power and almost cost me an engine....

so, I would suggest taking your car to an audi technician (not a dealer) and have them write you a lovelist.....basically they go through the whole car and document all the things that need attention....I did that last year...they charged me for an hour of labor and gave me a list of over $6k (including labor @$85/hr)of needed maintenance....in order from most to least needed.....what i ended up doing is buying a lil over 2k in parts and I did it all myself....

I used this site for most of the stuff that I did audidiy.com

 

Your car is trying to tell you to get in on the speedtuning chip group buy. Seen it a million times before....

 

^you should get comissions....lol

 

Haha... I would if I didn't set up my GIAC appointment for this Friday and I can't afford the down time.

But, the turkey baster power steering change has worked so far!