Whining noise

[adsgreen]

Pull the power steering fuse and see what happens.

Out of interest do the cars have electric or hydraulic power steering?

[doodlebug]

Does it happen when cold? More when in gear and foot on brake?

My money is on gearbox oil pump.

[DXBullet]

I believe mine is hydraulic as I didn't spec the variable electromechanical one (I may be wrong). I'll pull the fuse and update.

The noise is constant whether it's on cold startup or if you've warmed it up but it seems to increase if you've given it some beans and pull over straight to idle, then it moans like son of a gun! Also in gear, in park with or without foot on brake makes no difference.

If you pop the bonnet its difficult to hear but its clear as a bell inside the cabin which makes me think the gearbox oil pump may indeed be the culprit.

[adsgreen]

Obvious i know, but Worth Checking the fluid levels on the gearbox and power steering.
One classic reason for a whining pump is insufficient fluid to pump.

[DXBullet]

Quite right and that's the first thing the technician did but all levels were normal.

They did try the "it may be a characteristic of the engine" line but I was not buying it. I know there are a load of timing chains at the back of this V8 and you can hear them spinning if you listed carefully but this whining noise the OP described and which I'm also dealing with is something completely alien and drown out everything else including the radio!

[GOLDFERN]

No luck yet--It is unacceptable in my opinion---turn your radio on to the same volume level as the noise-- mine is about 14.

[GOLDFERN]

I did note that if you are in park, push the gear lever very slowly between gears and the noise briefly stops. Not sure if this has any relevance on the fault.

[GOLDFERN]

Downloaded app on I phone-- 'db level'. After warm up at idle radio/air off-- phone placed on the floor passenger side--average reading 75. My C6 RS6 is 62 and my sons S4 is 58.

[cola]

I've had my RS4 into the workshop twice now with the same issue. A replacement fuel pump was fitted as directed by Audi UK the first time. The car has been with the dealer for 3 weeks this time, spoke to the workshop manager yesterday and the diagnosis is a transmission fault, which the technician isn't prepared to strip down to fault find. New transmission on order, 2-3 week wait for the back order from germany. See how the waiting time pans out?

[GOLDFERN]

Mine goes in again tomorrow-4th time--did you do a db test of the interior noise? Did you also notice like an engine mis firing,like only running on 6 cylinders at around 40-60km and gentle accelerating? Perhaps related to the whining noise? Has your RS4 had the noise from new?

[cola]

I didn't see the need to do a test on the db levels, to my ears it was a noise that shouldn't be there. The technician agreed that it wasn't a noise he'd heard before and was definitely a fault. I bought the car when it was 4 months old, no abnormal noises on the test drive and none for the first few weeks of driving it.

The engine was running perfectly when the noise was there, not sure what you mean by gentle acceleration?

[GOLDFERN]

My transmission seems to select a high gear-- D6 at 50km/h--this feels like driving a manual and starting off in 3rd gear-- I look forward to hearing if your new transmission fixes the problem whinning noise.
Yesterday I drove 3 new RS4s--all had the same noise. I have only driven one other RS4 and that never had any noise.

[GOLDFERN]

''Cola'' was getting a new transmission-- did this fix the noise? If t did what was the fault code etc.