Hi Guys,

The front suspension on my octy has always been a bit harsh, but recently i've noticed that while going over rough patches in the road at very low speeds i seem to get a knocking / booming noise from the front end. I replaced the front tyres last week because they were a bit low on tread, and took the car to my dad who's been a mechanic for 40 odd years. He tested most of the front suspension components for wear / movement and the only thing he could find was that the front ARB link arms had a bit of play in them.

We replaced the link arms, and to an extent the harshness has gone from the front end, but i'm still getting the d*mn knocking at low speeds. He visually inspected the front ARB bushes and said they looked ok.

This car only has 26000 miles on it, and it's driven fairly gently, although it does have to contend with a set of speed bumps along our road every day, but i'm very careful to practically stop the car at each ramp, and slowly haul her over rather than cause any major impact to the front suspension.

Could the bushes be on their way out at 26000 miles, and if so, should i take the car to my local stealer and get them to replace under warranty? The car is not even 2.5 years old and i'm somewhat concerned at the prospect of big bills in the near future considering i just lost my job recently.

Any help would be appreciated - my dad says the front bushes look ok, but i dont think he has any good way of testing them other than disconnecting the link arms and taking the car for a run to see if the knock is gone.

greetings fella, there's a long thread on noisy octy front suspension on the forum, but, in my case, i've been getting a 'squeak' from n/s when driving over speedbumps. i've a friend whom works with vag motors (mostly volkwagens, but also some skodas and audis) and he has solved any noises etc by spraying lubricant around the various ball joints. he does this every several thousand miles and swears by it, perhaps this may be the cause of your fault?

i left my octy in for a service a few weeks back asking the dealer to have a look at the noise and they stated in produced no more noise than other octys, i took this as them saying there's nothing wrong with the car so get on with driving it.

i don't know if the various suspension problems listed by the peeps here are connected, or if there is a magic bullet as it were to give a cure.

hope this was of some insight.

regards.

my golf gti is at the dealers today with a drone type noise - only noticable at 50mph plus on smooth tarmac. chap has just rung to say its a rear tyre "out of shape".

never heard of this before - the rear tyres are assymetric f1s, only about 9 months old, lots of tread left, never been underinflated, punctured etc.

i have already ordered a new tyre and will be persuing this with goodyear for a refund.

In relation to your Golf GTI. I heard a similar problem when reading a write up on a long term GTI in Evo magazine. Might be worth a read on the website, it might assist with any claim you make.

Thanks DJM123 - I had a look on their site but could not find it - any chance you have a link?

Thanks.