hi fellas - can any other C4 owners let me know if this is relatively normal:

My C4 seems to emit a sort of 'groan' from the front when accelerating through about 1000 rpm in first gear -

quite a light sound - but mildly irritating - is this a common problem?

is there a simple solution? (other than trading in for a C2 - which given the frost outside today probably wouldn't be a good idea!)

thanks in advance

 

Timmer - My car doesn't chatter. Have you looked at the front axle? I would look at everything including the diff, CV joints and wheel bearings to see if anything looks out of place. I would also try locking the differential with the center console control and see if the noise changes. Let us know what you find.

 

Nope - mine does not do that either.

Could you be due for a diff. fluid change?

Marc

 

Why only FIRST GEAR, what happens when up-shifting through the gears ? At higher gears and faster speeds ? And, what exactly is a "groan" and at what RPM'S, I did not read that sentence well,. For now idem with Marc S.

 

Never heard anything like that from mine either.

 

No doesn't happen on my car.

DavidP

 

Mine doesn't do it either. A word of advice might be to try and isolate the real source of the noise. When I got my 964 the brakes started squealing. I SWORE it was the rears, but it turned out to be the fronts.

To track the noise, I bought one of those tiny microphones that's intended to clip onto someones shirts for lectures (it's about an inch long and 1/2 inch in diameter), taped it to the side of the car over each wheel well with masking tape(I did it four times) and for each "listening experiment" I plugged the mic into a tape recorder, let the noise occur, and then played the tape back. I isolated the noise to my left front brake using this technique.

FWIW I got the mic years ago at Radio Shack, I think it was about $15-20, and came with about 20 feet of hookup cable. If you hook it up near moving parts you (of course) need to be careful.

The reason I bring this up is because, like someone else pointed out, you report the problem is only happening in first gear, which implies it's gear box related, and not related to the front end. Another thing you might try is get the car moving lightly in 1st gear, put it in 2nd and take off to see if the noise appears in 2nd gear too.

Hope this helps,

 

thanks for all ther feedback guys -

I took it out for as scientific test as I could last night and indeed it does appear to do it in all gears as opposed to just first -

I think the reason I'd not noticed it in higher gears is that one rarely does 1000 rpm in them

the noise only lasts for half a second or so - and i'm sure that its coming from the front of the car but I may have to try the mic test to verify this

The odd this is the car was in the garage last week and test driven by them - I'd have thought it would have stuck out like a sore thumb and been picked up if it was a problem...?

 

What year is your car? If it is an '89 with a one-piece flywheel it could just be normal gearbox chatter which shows up at low RPM. Later years used dual-mass flywheels to dampen out this noise.

Greg

 

Tim - Maybe water inside the CV boots? Are they split? Low fluid in the front diff? They can leak.

UPDATE: just did a search, and you do own an 89 C4, so the noise you hear is as the others say, likely to be normal & is a result of the single mass flywheel used in the 89 only C4.

 

I'm with gfunk on this one. My 89 definitely has some gearbox chatter below about 2k RPMs. Could this be what you're talking about?

 

I think it could well be - car is indeed an '89 -

will take it into the shop this week and let you know what they say.

Cheers for all the shared knowledge

 

My '90 with LWF has the gearbox chatter at below 2000rpm as well....

 

My '89 C4 has developed a similar problem but it wasn't there before! There is also a slight clunk when engaging the clutch - like the gearbox taking up some slack - any thoughts?

 

thats what mine is doing too - when i drop the cluth on idle (car out of gear) the is a similar (but not as loud) groan to the low rev sound. like you say - as if the box is taking up some slack -

Car has 100k miles.

if your anywhere near SW london/Surrey way i'd gladly meet up to compare notes - not too many '89 C4s on the board - specially in the UK!