Hi guys,

I wonder if somebody could shed some light on my problem with my 2001 Polo 6n2 1.4 TDI.

It drives great when there is just me or me +1 in the car, but when carrying heavy rear seat passengers or lots of weight i'm getting a loud grinding noise from the rear end. Its hard to tell which side, but its constant and is not really affected by change in road surface or speedbumps.

The car has done 164k so i wouldnt be suprised if something is worn/failed, but i wanted to know if anyone else had this experience and also if somebody could list the things that can cause this? e.g. all types of bearings/mount that could have failed, so i can troubleshoot further.

It sounds like a wheel bearing to me but took to my garage today and after a couple of mins on the ramp he said the wheel bearings seemed ok and that 1 rear tyre was deformed and had uneven tyre wear, wearing on the inside edge. I had it replaced with a part worn today as the tyre was borderline legal anyway, but haven't been able to test if this has sorted the problem yet. Does it sound possible that this could cause such a noise? It seems a bit mad to me. As said before, the car drives fine when theres not alot of weight in it, with no abnormal noises whatsoever.

Many thanks in advance for your help :)

Pete

HIGH chance on the exhaust hitting the body, mine does it and sounds brutal going round bends sometimes.

Really? That's one of the things i ruled out as i thought that weight shouldnt really affect the positioning/movement of the exhaust?

i thought the same dude, but mine just catches and it sounds like world war 2.