Just wanted to chronicle my issue should anyone else have similar.
I am second owner of my B9 RS5. First owner put 3k on the clock and traded in. I purchased and put another 4k on it. So today the car has 7k miles and it has just about never driven right. What does that mean? Let me explain.
I have spent months trying to diagnose wheel vibrations and humming sounds coming from the front of the car.
On the stock rims and tires (20” flag rotors and sport contacts), I had the tires rebalanced, an alignment done, and several techs drive the car who said “it’s fine, we don’t feel or hear anything”. Note that the alignment shows that the front left was way out of spec. I think previous owner hit something. So I know that front driver hub is suspicious.
Frustrating. At the time putting on spacers made the problem a lot worse. Note that these spacers came off my S4 which drove glassy smooth. Audi and an independent shop both said it must be the spacers, but maintained they didn’t feel anything. (This was my first hint it might be the bearings because the problem got worse when the bearings were taking more load from the tires being pushed out a bit, but they, both Audi and the independent shop disagreed) So I started swapping things out because I was very unhappy with it all.
I decided to swap rims and tires, l figure the stock tires plus maybe the previous owner having hit a pothole or 2 was probably the issue. After all the front left was really misaligned the first time it went on the machine. I suspect it’s a bent rim or maybe the bearing.
I bought a set of 19” RS wheels and brand new AS/3+ tires. The rims were ET25 so they actually achieved the offset I was looking for without spacers and I sized down because of the good old NJ roads.
For the first few days it seemed better. Not great but better. After a week I started getting vibrations again. What was worse was that humming actually got louder at exactly 81 MPH. Perfectly reproducible. Front left. At this point I’ve been through 2 sets of wheels and tires, spacers and no spacers….and it’s still there. I’m convinced it’s the bearings or the drive shaft.
Took it back to the shop. “Car is fine, it’s just tire noise”. I asked them about the vibration. They didn’t feel it. I then asked if they drove it at the speeds I asked, they said their tech couldn’t do that. FFS.
A few weeks go by, it’s really annoying me. Took it to the shop again and asked them to balance and align the tires again, they do it. Rebalanced 2 wheels and aligned it, and said it was fine.
Next trip to work. 81 MPH hummmmmmmmmmmmm. Front left. Every time. Exacerbated, took it back to the independent shop a few weeks later and asked them to take it home for the night. Push it around and listen. I’m convinced it’s the wheel bearings.
The next day they called and said. Yeah we heard it. FINALLY! I’m not crazy. They continue to say they also felt the vibration in the wheel I’ve been complaining about. They agree to do some more digging. They spend about 3 hours using chassis listeners and spinning it up to 81 on the lift. No noise. They can’t determine where it’s coming from. The next thing they recommended was taking it back to Audi and having them pull the trans under warranty to take a look. They think it’s the drive shaft.
Now at this point I’m still convinced it’s the wheel bearing.
1. Spacers made it worse.
2. No noise spinning it up on the lift? Well there’s no pressure on the bearing
3. Wheels and tires have been swapped twice. The only other part is the bearings or drive shaft.
4. Front left had obvious signs of impact. First alignment was way out.
I asked them to change the bearings. They were very reluctant to just throw parts at it, but I convinced them (I mean I had to pay, but Audi was never going to replace them because they couldn’t reproduce the issue) They, along with Audi, said “this isn’t what a bad bearing sounds like” but they are right. It is not the traditional way a bearing fails, but all things pointed to the bearings.
Got it back yesterday. Car drives like it’s on glass. Zero vibration, zero humming. Almost 6 months of heartache for the thing I said it was to start.
So if you are fighting with in and out vibration in the wheel or any humming noise….. check the bearings. I’ll update here if it comes back, but the car has never driven as smooth and quietly at highway speeds as it did today and I pushed it around for a few hours to be sure.
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Originally Posted by dal59
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