So does my 08 R56 have a power steering fan or not? The reason I ask is today after driving in gravel we heard an occasional knocking noise that I couldn't reproduce with the steering, clutch, turning or any other way. Then I was turning a corner and came to a stop and at that point we heard a sound like something being slapped repeatedly by a fan blade or something like drrrrrrrrrrrrr or something then it got quiet. I drove around the corner and stopped and started my inspection finding nothing. Everything seemed fine now. Hmmm... Decided to drive back around the corner to the stop sign where that noise occurred, then stopped to see if there was anything in the road that could have fallen free but I didn't see anything. So I took off again and my wife says "Did you see that rock in the road back there?" So we go around the block again back to the stop sign and sure enough there is a 1" or so piece of gravel right where we stopped the car and got that noise. The car has been perfect since. could that rock really have been lodged up there somewhere being knock aroud occasionly giving me the occasional knock and then fallen down through the steering fan (if there is one!)? The rock had some marks on it but that could have been from anything and just been a coincidence but there was no other gravel or rocks nearby and it looked alot like the gravel from our 1/4 mile gravel driveway that I drive too fast on!

 

The rock or a rock could have gotten stuck in the radiator fan and bounced around a bit if it was running at the time. No fan on the power steering, not the R56 anyway...

 

OP no yr R56 is all electric system, there's no power steering fan like in that funky first gen electro-hydraulic steering system.

 

Hmmm...just went out and looked at it again. No marks on cooling fan or back side of radiator, nothing I could see down in the belt and pulley areas. Not sure the mysterious rock was even anywhere. But we were hearing the weird occasional knock sound (seemed to be right front) the knock sounded different each time we heard it. Then when we stopped we got that sound kind of like sticking a baseball card in your bicycle spokes, then quiet and we haven't heard any weird sounds since and we have probably driven 75 miles since. We are going to the dealer on Tues morning for oil change and front brakes and I want to mention this to them but I sure wish I had more to describe it or identify it so I don't sound like to big of a fool! At our dealer you get to talk to some poorly trained SA then your car goes away. You never even get close to the Service Dept. What else could we have been hearing that would have been spinning down there? My wife was thinking clutch but that doesn't make any sense to me as that is all enclosed. help!

 

my guess it's axle shaft or housing

 

I sorta had a similiar sound like you're describing one day. Turned out it was a small branch or twig that somehow got lodged in the front steering/suspension so that it was dragging on the inside of the front wheel rim. It did sorta sound like the old playing-card-in-the-bike-spokes from the bicycle days ...