Hi guys,

i'm having nothing but trouble with my vrs lately. i had the bushes uprated to the cupra ones, and ever since they have been done the car creaked and knocked like billy-o. i got my mechanic to look under the car to see if he could fathom what or where the noises were coming from and he narrowed the creaking down to the front bushed which he doused in wd-40 and all was well. he then found that the knocking was from the bolt that goes through the bottom of the suspension to the sub frame - it had threaded and wasnt being held in by anything but the weight of the thing it was going through (if that makes sense). he has replaced the bolt and i have been out on a long drive today to see if it had been cured.

it doesnt bang or knock anymore, but i have noticed that when i accelerate the car pulls me to the left and the steering becomes twitchy - as if its trying to turn right...? i'm proper confused about this as i thought that the problem would be sorted but it seems that my car has other ideas.

anyone any clue as to what i can try next to remedy things?

thanks, Iain.

Might need a wheel alignment to get right, now that everything is actually bolted up right. My local protyre does a good job, usually for £25 + vat.

Hi Wagdog

Sound like your mechanic did half of job. I wont be sloging him because I dont know him and Im always thinking that someone else might be doing the same thing about me/us.

Your acceleration pull might be down to engine mounts. I did suggest how to check it at home on this forum few times. 8 of 10 times its a problem with "dog bone" bush as there cars seems to have more torque that those bush can handle. It will create left pull under heavy acceleration.

One more thing I would like to point out that if had your console bushes replaced then most likely you need proper full alignment to do to make sure subrfame is in right place. Bolts that hold subframe have some slack and when you work on subframe there is a big chance it goes in wrong place.

You are actually local to me so if you want check few reviews about ABC CAR Service on this forum. We had quite good results with finding and fixing faults on VAG suspensions.

Having to replace a pair of console bushes doesn't really qualify as 'nothing but trouble' in fairness.

While i'm sure it's just the wrong term used and repeated i'm not sure how or why the subframe would be touched, you only need to remove the front wishbones to do the console bushes so ask whoever did the job how they did it. If they separated the wishbone by removing the top nut on the ball joint it shouldn't alter the tracking much, if they decided to do it using the three smaller bolts where the ball joint mounts to the wishbone then it may well have done, i'm pretty sure most garages would opt for the former as it's easier but you never know. As most places offer a free tracking check it'll cost you nothing to find out if it's out.

I had a similar issue when I purchased the Leon, took it to be tracked and after having it done twice within an hour and both times it pulling to the left it eventually occurred to us to check the tyre's. While they were matched and correctly balanced it turned out they were from different batches, this caused a car that tracked perfectly below 35mph ish to pull over that.

i like your point Avalon about it not being nothing but trouble, but i have here only written about ONE of the things that has happened recently that i cant fathom out. all other things i've had 'trouble' with i havent bothered writing about because a remedy has been found for them.

thanks for your input though..

Avalon - I agree that you shouldn't need to touch the subframe, but when I changed my console bushes a few months ago I couldn't get the wishbones back in place because the sleeves on the front Powerflex bushes were apparently too long. I tried the old bushes for size and they wouldn't fit back in the space they had just been removed from either, so it was apparent that the front of the subframe must have sprung back by a fraction when I removed the wishbones. I had to slacken the subframe bolts by half a turn each to get it to move forward slightly (when I slackened the last bolt the RH wishbone, which was already held by a ratchet strap, snapped into place by itself, and the LH one afterwards slid into place with hardly any effort). I half-tightened the front wishbone bolts before re-torquing the subframe bolts, and it appears to have settled back into its original position (not that it moved perceptibly anyway). I certainly haven't noticed any alignment problems since doing the work, so everything seems to be "as was".

Curiously, two days ago I started to get a knocking from somewhere under the car (the location appearing to move around at random - front NS wheel area, back box area, front bulkhead, under driver's seat ...). Nothing is obviously loose underneath, but I haven't had it on the ramps yet - I'll remember to check the subframe bolts when I do, though!

PS - I found the cause of the knocking pretty quickly today, as it happens: the lower NS droplink nut was slightly loose (so much for the nyloc locknuts that come with Meyle HD droplinks!). Silence has now been restored

Edited 2 July, 201214 yr by Dave1953