Knocking on bumps? Simple diagnosis of the most problematic arm in Passat B5 (Audi A4)
Symptoms—really loud knocking when running on bumps and stones. Inspection from down the pit, even with prybar in hand, gives nothing, and some begin to change everything in a row and randomly.
For troubleshooting it's best to disconnect arm joint ball from steering knuckle. But with the lower rear (bent) arm it is not so simple. It experiences the greatest load, so it wears out faster than others. Here I show how simply and quickly, even without a pit, you can reliably determine that it is this arm that makes noisy knocking, and how to remove it.
When installing a new arm, do not forget that the silent block is tightened only when the vehicle is standing on all four wheels!
Video about how I removed the arm from the other side (in case the hammer doesn’t work):