EDIT***It did end up being the exhaust, not the pipe, but the damn hanger!!!

Hey everyone,2000 miles in to my 07 A3, and I'm getting this annoying series oflittle "clunk" sound that intermittently showswhen going over small bumps, but mostly on rough grain roads. The best I can relate it to is like the way exhaust pipes knock against the floorboard, but I'm positive it's not exhaust after verifying the hangers are solid.

I can definitely feel "something" knocking when I place my hand on the base boards where the rear bench mounts. It's not a hard knock, but it is definitely close to the source. I spent half a weekend under the car with a deadblow hammer trying to locate any source of vibration and came up empty. Now, b/c I am positive the sound is coming from under the rear seat area, I want to check it out, but was hoping someone knew off hand how to remove the bench. If not I'll probably just try and figure it out, but thought I'd ask first, in case there was some special trick.

Thanks for any input!
Will

 

Just curious... is your spare tire tightly secured?

 

That is usually the spare tire cover knocking. Many different solutions, but the best I've seen is the self sticking felt or rubber gaurds. Hope this helps.

Cheers!

 

On mine I just have to yank straight up on one end, then walk around to the other side and do the same thing....no latches, no bolts....easy
Hope mine isn't broke, but oh well, it stays in place

 

Thanks for the replies fellas. I've also already elimnated the rear spare well and anything in the hatch (by removing it all). I actually lined the trunk lid with dynamat so that is definitely taken care of. Funny thing though,I thought I'd get under the car one last time and I think I located the problem.

The driver side rubber catback hanger was the issue. It has a split center design for a little more flex, but the inner ends of the hanger were binding on each other. Oddly enough, it only does it when the exhaust pipes have been warmed up. The hanger is a red color as if it were poly, but it was way too elastic to be any high grade poly. Now what is really weird is that rubber on rubber usually makes a squish orsqueek noise, not knocking. My only guess is that the inner endsmust have sent vibrations up to the hanger mount (on the passenger floorboard) which were magnified by the layer of ply into the cab. Under the car it didn't sound like anything extreme, but in the cabwas quite audible.

Either way, I found some old poly grease from some previous projects, lubed up the whole hanger, and was silent for 60 miles afterwards. I'm fairly certain that was it, hopefully it'll keep the knock knocks away!

Thanks!!!