Bob Petruska

but according to your post below you don't know what the problem was or what they replaced. Please think hard.....

gimik

it was a loose strut and/or loose brake carrier\caliper.. i'll see if i can dig up my receipt.

ReTodd

I was told that the only way you can really tell is taking the strut out and looking at it.

Bob Petruska

Bob P.

Bob Petruska

That is definitely something to look at. It just seems odd that I don't have the clunk going over rough roads and potholes whcih one would think that strut noise issues would show up. It is only when I apply the brakes that loud clunk is heard and usually only the first time that I brake after the car sits a few hours. I looked very carefully at the brakes and the caliper is not sticking and not loose. The clunk is so loud that I can't imagine a brake caliper or loose pads making that loud of a clunk. Just like someone hitting the rear bottom control arm with a hammer......bam!

Audi Junkie

Caliper gets my vote.

ReTodd

That was the case with mine. I only heard/felt it at slow speeds when braking and sometimes turning

Bob Petruska

I will check it again as the only thing that can happen there are the two bolts are extremely lose and the caliper would move back and forth I should then hear the noise all the time in forward and reverse. This does not happen.

Here are the latest symptoms.

When the car sits for 4-5 hours, on the initial pull out the car clunks. It has that stange sensation that the wheels move an inch or so without the car moving, then the clunk, the car moves. It's like the control arms have an inch or two slop that needs to take up befor the car moves, but the bushings have no play from the prying test that I done. Once that inital clunk is done, I don't hear it driving on a real rough road with small potholes, with or without light braking. I can let the car roll slightly after getting in so the brakes are hanging up. I let the car sit for 4-5 hours again and then the clunk on pull out. The clunk sounds like a hammer against the frame.

Even if my strut mounts were worn I would think that I would hear the clunk in normal everyday driving. I don't.

I'm really stumped on this one.

Bob Petruska

I had a family member watch the wheel/caliper when I first pulled out in the morning. I got the clunk and they said that the caliper jumped.
So I pulled the wheel for the third time this week, hit the caliper with a block of wood and hammer in bother directions and no movement. I then jacked up the suspension to reproduce the same angle and loading as when the tire is on the ground and shook eveything and nothing was loose. Went thought the prying of the control arms again and then took a turn at trying to move the strut. Everything was solid. Visual inspection of the brake pads has about a half an inch on both sides. Well I said that it's a nice 60 degree today and nothing better to do so I pulled the caliper to take a closer look. Thinking that maybe the slider pins are cracked, corroded, worn down, something! Pulled the pins, perfect, bores perfect. Started to pry the caliper up...... BINGO! The outside brake pad backing plate is not attached to pad lining, very easy to slide with my fingers!

Thus when the car sits for a few hours, the surface rust develops on the rotor in this current moist climate, thus the rust grabed the pad and let the pad shift on the backing plate a split second after the brake was applied. The pad moved enough to hit the caliper making the clunk. It is hard to believe that the pad moving would make that loud of a clunk. This was the sensation that I felt as though the car slid another inch when I first applied the brakes and had the clunk, thepassenger tire stopped rotating but the driver side continued to rotate somewhat. After the rotor surface rust was removed after applying the brakes that first time the rotors were smooth enough to not grab the pad abruptly as when the surface rust was there. I did have a very light squeak, squeak, squeak going down the road slowly now and then, but went away when I touched the brake pedal. That was the warning of the loose pad jittering on the rotor.

These are Hawk Ceramic pads, not abused, very gentle braking as I'm a downshifter fanantic, still a half inch thick after 20K miles, "gauaranteed for life". I bought them from Tire Rack but the box states that I need to go through Hawk for replacement. Probably not worth the effort as it will take a month or more working with the manufacturer.

Well I guess this is the end of the story and hope that it helps someone out in the future.

Bob Petruska

Outside brake pad seperated from the backing plate. I started to remove the caliper and could shift the friction material forward and backward with my fingers. This makes a lot of sense, read my reply to Audi Junkie below.