Hi everyone,

I've recently purchased a 2021 A5 Sportback that I love but has one really frustrating issue that I can't see past. When the car gets hot from the sun, the dash vent assembly that runs across the entire passenger side of the car gets really creaky and produces a sharp, brittle, plastic sound when going over bumps etc. I've narrowed it down to this part through process of elimination, slowly removing trims and the issue is definitely the vents.

I've ordered a new part from Audi that I'm hoping will resolve the issue and that the one I have has just loosened over time. Has anyone else experienced this issue and if so managed to find a fix?

Attached is an image for reference. Any help or advice would be most welcome.

Thank you!

I think on the A6 c7 that could suffer similar issues, owners resorted to using sticky back felt pads to cushion the speaker grill (in the c7 case) and the dash. 

Wrap some fabric electrical tape around the clips to make the trim a tight fit. Common on the B9 models so YouTube that there’s a few videos. Basically fabric tape.

Might be worth a shot if you still have the same issue with the new Audi part. 

Possibly one of the clips that secure it is loose or misaligned. Is there any sign it has been removed since manufacture? Think scratches or cracks around the lip where a lever might have been inserted.

12 hours ago, Steve Q said:

I think on the A6 c7 that could suffer similar issues, owners resorted to using sticky back felt pads to cushion the speaker grill (in the c7 case) and the dash. 

Wrap some fabric electrical tape around the clips to make the trim a tight fit. Common on the B9 models so YouTube that there’s a few videos. Basically fabric tape.

Might be worth a shot if you still have the same issue with the new Audi part. 

Thank you for getting back to me, I'll take a look into this.

12 hours ago, cliffcoggin said:

Possibly one of the clips that secure it is loose or misaligned. Is there any sign it has been removed since manufacture? Think scratches or cracks around the lip where a lever might have been inserted.

Thank you for getting back to me. For this particular part it gets screwed in and any clips just go into the slots on the dash as opposed to a clip container. I will double check all the alignment though. Thanks again. 

Please keep us posted on how you get on 🙂 

The new part arrived and wow what a difference! No matter how much I tinkered with the old one, I'd never be able to get it as good as the part so decided to go ahead and fit it. Having just done a road test, the difference is night and day. The new part is really rigid and doesn't creak at all, where as the old one was really flexible.

For anyone else experiencing this issue, particularly with a 2-3 year old car, I can't recommend changing the part enough, the improvement is huge. It cost me £319 direct from Audi and arrived the following day and was very easy to fit.

Edited July 11, 2025Jul 11 by tombruty

That's good to read, though disappointing it needed to be done on a four year old car. Perhaps the design was updated since your car was made.

I would have marked your above message as the solution if possible, but I believe you have to do that yourself.

 

I've done quite a bit of research to get to the bottom of this and I've seen it mentioned in several places that the build quality of some parts was not as good during the pandemic and improved significantly in 2023. Interestingly the part I removed was manufactured in October 2020 (pandemic) and the new part end of 2023 so there could be some truth to that.

That's interesting I hadn't heard that. But must be some truth in it as per your experience. So glad you got sorted 🙂