Low quality interior trim ?

[Quickben]

I thought Audi interiors were meant to be as good as if not better than BMW/Mercedes these days ?

My new to me 2008 A4 with only 40k on it has so many rattles inside the cabin, I don't know where to start looking to sort them out. It's very frustrating, especially since my last car was a 14yr old BMW 330i with 136k barely made a noise inside.

If I could point a finger to where I think the noises are coming from, it would be the door trims towards the central pillar (all four doors seem to rattle to a varying degree) but I know how interior rattles can be misleading in regards to location.

Any known issues along these lines ?

Cheers

Gary.

[Crasher]

Never mind the interior trim being poor quality, take a look at your rear chassis legs, this cars a year newer than yours....

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd20/Crasher1964/4F%20chassis%20leg%20rust_zpsb4tpemwv.jpg (http://s222.photobucket.com/user/Crasher1964/media/4F%20chassis%20leg%20rust_zpsb4tpemwv.jpg.html)

[zollaf]

2 years ? from needing welding. on the plus side, that steel brake pipe looks incredibly well made.

[Crasher]

It is going to become a nasty issue in a few years, all VAG cars do it but Skoda's do seem to suffer less, Audi is by far the worst. We had a 2008 TT in the other week and the entire rear floor and chassis legs were covered in deep rust.

[Col]

What happened?

I've got two VW's, one 16 years old and one 12 years old and having recently and carefully inspected them, this was about the extent of the rust. Just some very very light fraying round the edges. Strangely almost all over or around the factory spot welds.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v602/colin__/Golf/Golf%204%20rear%20suspension/DSCF5835_zpsvavft5zs.jpg

That is on the 16 year old Golf.

Needed only a quick buzz over with a wire cup brush in the mini grinder and some paint.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v602/colin__/Golf/Golf%204%20rear%20suspension/DSCF5842_zps7nsxgsnu.jpg

Other than that nothing at all of any consequence, certainly nohing like that Audi chassis leg. Have VW forgotten what they once knew? They were once extremely good at rust proofing.

[Crasher]

It starts around the spot welds and spreads fast, I have heard the problem referred to as Galvanic lift. We have a 2009 Golf 6 in earlier today that last year we had to sand off all the rust spots, treat them and coat with Dinitol. Not only that but the bottom of one door was really bad and the tailgate had advanced rust above the light unit and all along the bottom edge.

[Col]

Interesting. It seems the older cars suffer this also as per my pictures above (2001 MK4 Golf above) but it takes much much longer to manifest itself. As said my cars are 12 and 15 years old but even so neither had anything like what was on that chassis rail pic.

[Embisix]

Blimey, I best get underneath mine and take a gander!

Anyway, back to interior trim. I must admit that I was slighly disappointed with some of the materials used in the B8's cabin. My previous B6 Avant was so incredibly solid inside!

I soon came to the conclusion that when the B8 was released the economic climate wasn't what you'd describe as ideal, so I'd wager pre-production B8s had better materials and come the proper production run certain things may have been a cost cutting exercise. That's certainly the impression I get. I mean that silver plastic around the clocks, what were they thinking?!?!

Anyway, all that said, mine's a 2010 with 120k and has no rattles at all; the only issue I did find was the centre speaker grille in the dash buzzing at certain frequencies, especially when using hands-free. That was an easy fix, I just popped it off and ran some of that foam draught excluder tape around the edges.

I've never had any issues with the doors rattling, even with the B&O cranked up so perhaps your doors have been dismantled at some point in it's history and not re-assembled that well.

Another thing to check is the the rubber seals around the window frames. These can harden over time and creak against the bodywork (where they push against the paintwork) which can sometimes sound like a rattle. A dose of rubber nourisher of some discription should sort that...

Hope you get it sorted; rattles/creaks properly do my head in!

[jodymussen]

Any luck getting the door rattles stopped? My driver side door rattles like mad over rougher roads!


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