I have an Audi A4 2.0T and recently I've noticed that there is a bit of road noise when I drive the car. The car is in stock form and under 15k miles. Basically the sound seems to come from the bottom of the car. The noise happens on all roads, it gets louder as you drive faster and diminishes when you slow down. Its pretty easy to hear when going over 40MPH, even if I put the car in neutral. Lastly maybe its me, but I think when the entire car is fairly cool (just turned on from resting the night) there isn't as much noise.

Does anyone have an idea what this might be? I thought it might be the tires so I checked the tire pressure and they are fine, also condition looks fine still. I did some searching on the forums and couldn't find much about this issue.

Planning to take the car in for 15k maintenance but figure maybe somone could help me find out what is causing this so I could tell them exactly what to fix.

 

I thought it was the mechanics job to figure it out.

Have you been rotating the tires when you get your oil changed. If you ran them for 15k in the same spot you could start to get more road noise.


Just turn on the radio.

 

Haha yeah it is the mechanics job to figure out the problem. But figured if I knew what was causing the problem I wouldn't have to leave the car in the shop as long. And yes the wheels have been rotated.

One thought that comes to mind is maybe its a bad wheel bearing. Thoughts?

 

Do you take the car to the track? You better not have a bad wheel bearing after only 15k miles.
Also, a wheel bearing would have a high pitched squeeking / squeeling sound most times.

Define road noise. Does it sound like the tires (load roar) or does it sound like something else?

 

Is wheel bearing sound only a high pitch squeeling/squeeking? From what I've read from other peoples' experiences with this, none seem to mention high pitch squeeling/squeeking. Granted the sound gets louder with time as the wheel bearing condition worsens.

Anyway, mine seems to be a wheel howl type, that gets louder and softer depending on speed. Also when I drove today and actively paid attention. I noticed that going under 30 and slowing down there is a low pitch grinding sound. This sound is there even if the brakes are not applied.

 

Well I did take my car in for the 15k maintenance. Dealership said that the sound is within manufacture spec. I do not believe its normal though. Anyways, following the maintenance I took the car to an independent tire shop and had the tires balanced and rotated. Unfortunately the sound/noise still persists.

Yesterday I found a nail in one of my tires, so had it removed earlier today. Since the nail did not actually puncture the tire no repair was needed. However after this the sound still persists.

A better description of the sound is that it basically is an oscilliation type sound. What I mean is that the sound at low speed, say under 25, is basically a whir---whir---whir, etc. When I drive faster, since the oscillation is faster the sound becomes blurred and just becomes a constant whirr sound.

I don't know what is causing this sound and any insights would be appreciated. The tires don't have any extreme wear and I don't go driving on the race track.

 

It sounds like it might be tire noise, but its hard to tell unless i'm right there listening. I would say just go with a different type of tire when its time for new ones. Good luck though.

 

Hmm, if the tires are that loud, I'd bitch and complain for new ones. I think Audi has a problem with using crap tires on their cars as OEM spec. Usually conti's, which CAN be good... but they are often quick to wear, and noisy.

 

you might be onto something with the wheel bearing. ive heard simialr noises on a friends car after he drifted into a curband his front tire smashed it

 

WHen i changed my wheel bearing it was making a that kind of noise, unfortunitly you can drive on a bad bearing for a while b4 anything goes wrong, i did about a 1k miles till i was able to get mine done. Bring it to the dealer and say you think its a bad bearing.