IainH

4 hours ago, spartacus 68 said:

I looked into that Chassis Ear tool, but that’s basically a workshop tool when the car is in the air. Your garage sound like they are doing the right thing, especially if not advocating ‘swap out the entire lot’ approach. Get them to look a specifically at universal joint on steering shaft (grease it), or friction at the steering column's bulkhead seal, (silicone spray).

No, you clip the ChassisEAR to the suspension arms, then drive and it picks up which one is creating the creak

4 hours ago, spartacus 68 said:

You’re running a 3.0TDI V6 up front, so you’re dealing with a heavy engine. It’s not just age

Yes, I think you're right. I've seen mention of lower rear arms/bushes being prone due to the loading the receive, but without something like the ChassisEAR it's hard to know which arm/bush is the issue, and if some are ageing, likelihood is that they all are, and so while a chunk of cash, it's all making me think a complete front end refresh might be the best option to cure not only this creaking, but 'creaking to come'. It would be maddening to sort 'this creaking' out, just to have a repeat on different arms/bushing in a number of months time.

My hope was to get a feeling form other A5 owners of what they had experienced and found to work/not work as a guide, i.e. sort 'this' and you'll be good, or 'Doing the odd arm' e.g. lower rear, will only cure that before others start. I can't be the only one to experience this ... or so I thought.

Have asked Meyle about front end kits based on your helpful advice. Thanks for that 🙂

4 hours ago, cliffcoggin said:

If it matters to you whether other folk have had this problem then a search of the relevant A5 forum should reveal some answers.

I started there, didn't find a lot and thought I'd ask here. Seemed a pretty reasonable place to ask this kind of question

On 6/4/2026 at 5:45 PM, spartacus 68 said:

If you're changing anything, then always do both sides. Lemforder and Meyle HD, that's all I'd fit.

Thanks for the pointer to Lemforder and Meyle. You'd discount TRW?

Well, this is my point. Is other people's experience that A5 suspension bushes 'age' and need replacement after ~8 years? It's not typical IMHO and I've not experienced it on other Audi and non-Audi models, but the experience here might be that this is indeed to be expected of an A5. None of us can diagnose the actual vehicle, but there may be collective knowledge here that others have found the same creaks at the same age and it's just a 'regular' service item on these vehicles

We're back in France and the creaking is back ... (slighter) warmer temps, small, bending and bumpy roads. Would you expect suspension bushes to start to give up after 8 to 9 years? It's certainly not mileage and it's not rallied, so I'm surprised to be getting this. Can't remember changing bushes on previous cars, including Audi 100, A4, and A3, and BMW 530d (which did something like 230k miles)

Last summer while in the heat of southern France, my A5 (Dec-2017, 40,000 mile) developed a front suspension creak. It was always at low speed and particularly when turning left. The car was completely checked on my return, 'shaked, rattled and rolled', but steadfastly refused to creak once, however, everything was checked, levered, put in a shaking plate, and no creaks or movement in joints found, and so while noisy, the car was declared 'good' (safe). The sound is very like the creak heard here (02:29) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzRt8SxUbWk&t=149s ... although is not when driving as in this clip, only at slow speed turning.

Now summer is back, so is the creak, however, this times the garage have had it creak for them, so at least I'm no longer a nutjob coming in with an imaginary creak 😂 However, again checked, and while the creak can now be heard, identifying which bush of which control arm, is more of a challenge. To their credit, the garage aren't proposing 'Just change everything', and instead trying to be a little more surgical.

Lower rear front control arms seem 'popular' as a source of creaks brought on by the loading they get, but so far the the only option seems to be the use of a Steelman Wireless ChassisEAR (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8x8rY6RRZE ). This provides a pack of sensors that clip to the control arms and help determine which is the source. See an dealer article on this at https://rsautotechnik.uk/how-to-solve-an-audi-a5-suspension-issue/

Has anyone else got any experience of this kind of suspension noise? Is it 10:1 it will be a lower rear suspension arms, or have people got experience of other arms/bushes becoming noisy?

The video I quoted above (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzRt8SxUbWk&t=149s) makes the not unreasonable point that once once bush has started to go, the others may not be too far behind, and as you should be considering a wheel alignment after a suspension component replacement, while 'doing the lot' is a little eye watering (8 control arms!), it does get it over and done with and only requires the one alignment post replacement, so despite the (very) low mileage of my car, maybe it's just a case of age getting to the bushes which are starting to complain?

Anyway, I'd be interested in other people's experience, thoughts and vote on most likely component. Maybe I just need to get under the car and inspect the bushes myself and make my own decision about how healthy (or otherwise) the bushes look, or just conclude 8.5 years just means the bushes are hardening and cracking, and complete replacement is the way to go given I'm likely to keep the car a long time ... it's an nice car with an absurdly low mileage, and I've had it from new.