Ok, OK i know this is kinda non descript but on the off chance this sounds familiar please contribute any thoughts or ideas u may have. When I start my baby up in the morning and whilst in neutral, if I turn the wheel left or right I get this odd groaning sound and a slight twitch in the steering, this will happen for a few seconds and then when I reverse out of my spot and put into drive I usually hear one more small groan when I turn. My guess is maybe a ball bearing or a strut or something but I was wondering if any of you other users have run into this. In an effort to offset my stupid question my next post will have something useful I did find out a few weeks ago about CEL issues.

Thanks in advance

 

I've got a small groan too when I turn the wheels at low speeds, like pulling into a parking space in parking lot. It almost seems like it is the 17" tires rubbing up against the wheel well, but there is no vibration or anything to indicate that any contact is occurring. Just the noise and at times the steering does not like feel like the power-assist is working.

I am going to report it at my 25k service and see what happens. Last time I was at the dealer to buy some parts, I asked them to top off the p/s fluid. That actually reduced the groaning and helped the power assist at low speeds, but only a little bit, not by very much.

 

if u have a quattro, then ur hearing the steering groan because the wheel is cranked to the max, basically ur car is always in 4 wheel drive but its hard to get power to all 4 wheels when they are turned so sharply so it makes this odd groaning sound when the wheel is maxxed out also it will twitch a little bit if u hold it cranked all the way and still give the car gas.....its normal....acutally my old xterra when it was in 4x4 drive it's turning radius would drop about 35% and if u tried to crank it the car would actually buck and get rough because the front axel couldn't turn that far and handle power at the same time

but if its not when ur turning the wheel all the way over then it sounds like maybe u have a few bubbles in ur steering fliud that would also cause a groan but its more of a buzzing noise then anything else

and if its NOT any of those two then on my dad's dodge truck there was an issue withen the differential that make this really slight groan noise every once and while but that was his rear diff and only when he gave the car a little power after starting it and putting it in drive