Front Suspension Rocking Noise after Hitting a Curb (Loose Dust Shield/Strut Bumper?)
 

Fellow A4 owners,

A couple of weeks ago, I hit a curb with my 2009 A4 at about 30mph, blew up both front and back tires on the driver side, and bent the two rims as well. Ouch...

Anyway, I ordered and put on new sets of rims and tires, and after getting alignment done, everything seemed to be ok until a minor rocking sound from the front suspension (obviously on the driver side) was noticed when going over a certain type of pot holes or dips which would allow some wheel displacement. No noise was observed when the suspension was in compression.

When this issue was consulted with my local dealership, they could not find the cause of that funky rattle, so I jacked up the car myself and found that what appears to be the dust shield or the strut bumper in the strut system was loose and traveling up and down freely along the strut itself making some rubber bouncing noise. The other side when compared had the part firmly fixed to the top plate throughout. Thus, I am suspecting it to be the cause of the noise.

Have you had any similar problem(s), and if so, what did you do to fix it?

My advice might be completely useless as I can't remember now what kind of system there was in the suspension in front, but I recall this similar issue being problem in Finland when getting really cold these strut parts could get deattached the same way and causing noises especially in the back struts. Afair fix was just to use some bonding agent to reattach it properly.

Either above, or the shield is just damaged and needs replacing.