Rattle from front of B6 Estate

[golfed]

I have a funny rattle at 1-2K RPM from the front of my B6 estate - its quite a "light" tapping sort of noise and is always worse when I have a bit of left-hand lock on the steering. It never happens unless the car is moving - so I cannot reproduce it on my drive. It sounds a bit like something is loose and resonating at a certain RPM but I cannot see anything .... its getting really annoying now. Anyone got any ideas?

[RichardSEL]

Nail in a front tyre? Would've embedded itself so difficult to see.
Had a tyre that wouldn't balance once, that was it.
Fitter couldn't feel points from inside or out but it was there with head worn off

[S66MJETDI]

One of the many ball joints on it way? Arb link? CV joint? Bit of crud stuck behind the brake stone shield? Wheel bearing...... this is a really hard to diagnose remotely..... Everyone hears noises differently.

[golfed]

Thanks for responses - actually I now realise this was a bit of a stupid question as there are many possible causes ....:(

[S66MJETDI]

Theres never a silly question only stupid answers. The noise will require some patient and thorough examination. If I were to guess I would suggest taking off the wheel on the offending side and giving the anti roll bar link a good looking at, when mine went the noise was intermittent as the rubber bush had separated from the link and as the car moved about sometimes the link was damped sometimes it was metal on metal. Track rod ends and Lower arms are pretty common followed by the upper arms. Engine cover rubber grommets can slip out of their channels allowing the cover to vibrate, check to see if its loose. I have a B6 now but previously I ran a B5 for 6 years and during that time at the 130k period for about 18 months I played chase the knocking noise, until gradually I had replaced each arm in turn. My current B6 has juts touched 128k and guess what I'm already 3 arms down......

[DSG4ME]

Check the engine shield and inner wing liners, these can flap about.

[golfed]

Thanks for help on this. I eventually had time to investigate and after lots of poking around the front end I eventually spotted the cause of the problem - one of the bolts holding the driver-side engine mount to the block had some completely loose and was rattling around. Quite why it only made a noise when a) the car was moving and b) a minimal amount of left hand lock was applied I have no idea. The bolt was a swine to get at and tighten - I eventually got a mini "wrecking bar" 3/8 attachment from Halfords which did the job. Will get garage to check/replace at next service (5K miles).

[Quatrelle]

Thanks for posting the update.