SOLVED: The illusive 6R rear rattle (gate)

[pontiff]

Hey all,

i know i have mentioned this in another thread but I thought if I start another one it will make it easier to find for other people as I am sure its something that VW are aware of (as i will go into later) but finding this exact fix is not really mentioned on the good-old interwebs (or at least that I could find authoritatively). Closest thing I could find was
VWVortex.com - Loud rattling from rear shock mounts

Anyway... there was a rattle coming from the rear of my car. I had the entire rear end of the car apart from the seats back and if you had someone drive along with you in the boot (big tick for OH&S here people) if you put your ear to where the shock mount assembly is, you could hear a 'clicking'. I thought it was the body flexing, dodgy spot welds and all manner of things. Its been there for as long as I can remember and started getting worse as i was playing around with my KW's and what not so i thought it was that. When i went back to the OEM suspension it was still there so i took it back to VW (it was only on the drivers side at this point) and they ended up replacing the shock mount and the noise went away.

Well the left hand side started doing it a few weeks ago so since the car was due for a service and I was doing it myself anyway, I ordered a new shock mount from VW for about $63 (you have to order the new cap also, the old one does not fit) and sure enough, its been 3 days now, and the noise is completely gone! Attached are some pics of the new and old units. It looks like the new one has a different style of rubber donut in the mount to dampen the vibrations and seems to be a little lighter if anything.

So if you have the same thing with your car (I think gavs you have it on yours IIRC) then i can say..... replace the shock mounts .

I know that febi bilstein and a few other OEM's from europe make mounts too but in this situation given the issues, i would just buy the VW one. They obviously know something that we dont or they have read the warranty data as the design of the unit is definitely changed to address an issue of some sort. What the deal is with the differently designed cap is anyones guess.

The new part numbers are

shock absorber bearing: 6R0 513 353
protective cap: 6R0 512 135

..... the original part installed is 6R0 513 353 B, so they just knocked off the B. ETKA does show this as being a supersession in 2013, so if you have a 2010-2012 car you will most likely have the old part and could do with replacing it.

Given both of mine went 'around' the same time, i dare day that there will be a lot of cars out there that have the same issue but just dont either 1) realise or 2) care . If your car is doing it and is still under warranty i would certainly get VW to foot the bill.