After about 3 months of ownership (A3 SB S-Tronic) - i am getting a metallic rattle, it seems to be quite random when it occurs. sounds like a lightweight metallic rattle, I can re-produce it if I roll over a speed hump in my local supermarket but it does not do it over all bumps. Booked the car in, test drove it with a technician who heard it. They had the car all day, checked the engine bay and everything underneath and said all was fine.
They provided me with a statement from an Audi tech note regarding (as Audi put it) a 'clacking' noise.
"An external impact such as driving over a manhole cover, cobbled street, 2 rail tracks or similar can cause the parts of the pre selected gear to vibrate. The customer perceives this as a clacking noise.
The complaint is only a comfort problem. The noises are construction related and normal"
I can understand some small noises from the gearbox are the norm as this is a mechanical unit and gears are moving around, but if the noise I am getting is related to the gear box then Audi have made the gears out of baked bean tins !!
It does not sound deep enough to be like a solid metallic bump, clacking sound but not 'tinny' enough to be a heat shield rattle, it is somewhere in between.
I cannot fault the dealership in their efforts to help, friendly, polite in fact a pleasure to deal with, but it looks like I will have to wait until it becomes worse before taking the car back again ...