I have an A4 2002 Z28 with 2.73 factory gears. As I understand it, this car has a Series 2 carrier.

The shop I called to inquire about getting the gears did some checking for me. He was told by a major gear vendor that no matter what brand of gears you put in a Series 2 carrier, it will be noisy.

Is this generally true? Swapping out to a Series 3 carrier is prohibitively expensive, and I'm thinking that if I have to do that in order to not have excessive noise maybe I should just get a whole new rear end for the car?

Anyone else done a gear swap from 2.73 factory gears to 3.73 with a Series 2 carrier and NOT had excessive gear noise? If so, what gears did you get?

Thanks!

 

I have 2-series Strange 3.73s, and there's some slight whining at 35-45mph, but that's normal with these gears.

 

I was looking at the Strange gears too. I have a slight whine at about those speeds with the stock gears already.

Would you characterize the noise as obnoxious, or just barely noticeable at those speeds?

Did you come from 2.73 gears also? If so, would you recommend the 3.73s after running them for a while?

Thanks!

 

2 series motive gears here, only whines from 40mph on down on de-accelleration.