I would like to apologize for the long post - please don't feel the need to read the whole thing; however I would like to thank you in advance if you do, especially if anyone replies.

Hi everyone, I am a proud owner of a bone stock 1997 A4 1.8T Quattro "auto-tragic," as I have seen it called before, in mica metallic blue, with just a few miles under 100,000.

I have been lurking on this forum for approximately one year (since a few weeks before I bought my car), but I feel as though I do not have the knowledge, nor any reason to post until now. I feel a sort of guilt in my attempt to "use" the forums, but the truth is that I have been using you guys indirectly ever since I was thinking about buying my car

I guess I will introduce myself firstly:
My name is Brian Janice, I am 22 years old from Massachusetts about 10 minutes outside of Boston. I am an engineering master's student; however, not the mechanical kind, which may or may not put me at a disadvantage when attempting to repair my car on my own.

I have trust issues with mechanics (I'm sure some of you can relate), and have recently avoided some high repair costs by reading this forum and replacing my ignition control unit at home instead of paying $500 (quoted) to the mechanic down the street to replace all of my ignition coils (still not fixing the problem, and I'm sure my injectors would be next on their list).

I was feeling some self satisfaction about this repair and have since decided that I would like to attempt some higher level maintenance on my car, including maybe harvesting a tiptronic shifting assembly from a junk yard and buying the missing pieces elsewhere to upgrade to tiptronic (I know that it will never be a manual...), fixing my cruise control as it hasn't worked since I bought the car, and chipping it as I hear it can give better gas mileage (and it doesn't hurt to have a little more 'go' either).

One main thing has been preventing me from doing any of these jobs, and I am going to try and describe it as best as I can:
I was driving to work in traffic the other day and experienced what I believe to be an abnormality in my car's behavior while braking at low speeds and then accelerating. When coming to a stop, I can sometimes hear a slight rubbing/grinding noise which I believe to be metal on metal (brake pad on rotor?). This noise may just be superficially amplified in my mind, but I felt a similar thing before and brought it to the mechanic - it turned out to the be the outer pin of the caliper sticking out, rubbing against the inside of my rim. The reason I say that it may be amplified in my mind is that it is a secondary issue to me, as I heard another noise which initially brought my attention to that area of my car, replicated by the following steps:

I come to a slow, complete stop.
I let off the brake and begin to move.
I hear 'click' from under my feet

This is not a super loud click; however I can feel the click on my foot while the car begins to move, but to make other people hear it, I have to call their attention to it and it must be silent inside the vehicle. The problem also comes at different times, but always when accelerating from a complete stop -
sometimes it comes before my foot is all the way off the pedal,
sometimes a few seconds after my foot begins to lightly push the accelerator,
sometimes a few seconds after lightly pushing the accelerator and then turning the wheel slightly.

The car has never pulled to one side, it does not squeal, creak, or moan when turning a corner, I have jacked it up and tried to wiggle the tire both at the 9-3 and 12-6 o'clock positions and have felt no play. The rubber components of the mechanism look to be in surprisingly good condition for a 13 year old car from New England, but I have noticed one discrepancy from the other wheels: the brake pad visible from the outside of the rotor looks to be worn a little jagged (the others have sharp edges). My rotors and pads are less than one year old along with the pads (I had them replaced).

From what I have read and seen online, I don't think it is a tie rod or control arm problem - I think the caliper is sticking a little bit. I just wanted to see if anyone else had a similar problem or knows a fix for it before I bring it to the mechanic. It does not interfere with my driving whatsoever, but it doesn't seem to be normal and I don't want to leave any problem to be exacerbated. I feel like it is either something simple, or something terrible

Brian

 

Brian, welcome to the forums. Let me start off by saying, Go Celtics, Beat LA! I grew up in New England, my little bro lives in Boston, and I have extended family in Manchester and Marlboro.

Anyway, I've never experienced it myself, but a lot of the stuff I've read on here points me to believe you may have a wheel bearing going out. But, don't panic just yet, I would wait for someone to agree with me, or suggest something else.

 

Could be a few things. First off get the front tires off the ground and check for any play in the steering suspension. I'm betting on one of the ball joints or the strut tower bushing. if you don't find any play with the tie rods, ball joints or wheel bearing I'd take a look at that strut bushing. probably won't be able to see if it's bad but it might just be in several pieces or something easy to see.

Oh and I love the replication steps lol.

 

jiggleo, you have to admit, this is much better than the typical noob post:

"My car is makeing a funny noise, what could it be?"

(typo included intentionally, since most noobs can't spell worth a damn either)

 

what kind of engineer are you? i'm not ME either but i do work on my own car like nobody's business lol. jack the car up and spin the wheel and see if you can hear the sound. is it just one click or is it constant? does it vary with speed, like click faster as you go faster? where do you hear the sound coming from? inside or outside of the car? also take your front wheels off and take a look at the large rubber boot behind the brake rotors. it's the largest one in the near vincinity. if it's ripped and you can see what's inside the boot, your problem could be a bad CV joint. when a CV joint is bad enough, it'll click when the car is rolling and the frequency changes parallel to speed.

brad are you saying you learned how to spell on the forums? hehe

 

Yep, the forrum taut me evrything i know aboout speeling. THANX AWDEE FORRUMS!

Damn, that reminds me though, need to do my CV joints when I get home!

 

Brad:
I am looking forward to the Celtics beating LA also

I thought it was a wheel bearing for a while, but no squeal and no play in the tire when I jacked it up - these seem to be the most common symptoms of wheel bearing failure, from what I have read, but I am not ruling any suggestions out.

jiggleo:
So far, I have only jacked one wheel up at a time and checked for play, and I removed the tire and looked at all the rubber on all the components of the wheel in question; however, I did not take BOTH front wheels off the ground to check for play in the steering suspension since I don't know exactly what you mean by that (sorry) :-\

The replication steps were supposed to be a bit sarcastic, as it is not very hard to reproduce the problem - I am just trying to avoid being flamed for not describing everything in full detail

hiwords:
I am an electrical engineer. I work on mostly antenna design, RADAR, and high frequency (RF) components.

I tried to repeat the sound with the wheel jacked up myself with no avail. The only thing I could see was when I was trying to spin the rotor after pressing the brake, it felt like the brake still had a little grip on it and it had a little smear where the rotor was, but it wasn't really hard to spin. I jacked the other wheel up without taking the wheel off and it did not have a smear, but I couldn't tell if it had the same friction I felt on the other rotor since the wheel was still on.

There is just one click just after braking to a complete stop outside the car at the wheel which leads me to believe the brake is sticking just a tiny bit and then letting go when I get moving.

The large rubber boot you're talking about - is it like an accordion? If so, this boot is immaculate. Nicest looking boot on my car I bet. It looked like someone was sneaking out at night and putting Armor All on it. I feel like if one of you looked under my car, it would seem like I actually DO take care of it myself (lol) with the exception of my rust-colored brake caliper. This is why I sincerely think it is sticking. I have also seen people mention that the brake pad might be sitting incorrectly in its spot (??).

Thank you for all of your replies

 

Welcome to the forums BTW.

 

The accordian rubber thing is your CV boot, and if it looks like you have a little midget climbing under your car to armor all it every night, then more power to you. Mine, on the other hand, is ripped, and needs to be replaced. I'm going to do the whole CV joint (about 100 bucks, so not to bad) just to be on the safe side.

The more you describe it, the more it does sound like your brake pad is sticking a bit from a stop. You might benefit from a quick disassembly and cleaning, then put some brake lube on the part of the caliper where the pads slide back and forth. It might work, it might not, but hey, it will barely cost anything, and it gets some wrench time in! And, BTW, I still think you win the award for "Best Detailed Description for a Noob." Trust me, it's not a bad thing... (for the record, I still consider myself a Noob, both to the Forum, and to Audi in general).

Krip- you know the Lakers are going down again, just like in '08... Damn, I can't believe I was deployed then too...

 

Welcome to the forum Brian (even though you've lurked for a year). Let me just say thank you for writing with with some sense of intellect. I always appreciate when people speak (or type, as case may be) with eloquence; particularly on the internet.

I'm 23 year old college student studying Audio Production (formerly Electrical Engineering) and I work on cars all the time. You don't have to be an ME, you just have to be willing to learn and make mistakes.

I was also going to recommend you check your CV boot, but you already did (the according looking one) they can be a common problem on all cars with CV joints. I would continue to inspect that brake caliper. If you clean it like Brad suggested check to make sure the piston will easily retract into the caliper (using a C Clamp). If it is difficult to press the piston back in you could have a frozen caliper.