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Hi,
My car has a couple of problems. One, the dash brake light sometimes stays lit until I brake hard, then it will turn off. Two, There’s a dip in the road just before my driveway, just about every time a turn into it I hear a soft clunk which I believe comes from the front drivers side… I was told it may be a bad strut bearing. I was also told to test it by turning the wheel while stopped and observing the coil… is this correct? Should the spring turn when the wheel turns or not?
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Yeah the spring turns with the wheel.
About the clunk – You need to get under the car and check some things – one being the ball joints. I am not saying they are bad or whatever, but that is about the WORST thing in the front end that can fall apart. There are plenty of videos about how to check ball joints but basically with the respective wheel off the ground and car supported by a jackstand, not just the jack, you pry between the steering knuckle and the lower control arm. The control arm may rotate a tiny bit when prying which is OK but the control arm should not be moving away from the steering knuckle at all. Try not to pry on the rubber boot protecting the ball joint, it tears easily.
Yeah it sounds weird but it is pretty easy, just dig up some videos.I will let someone smarter than me explain the brake light but in a nutshell – sounds like a brake misbalance.
Check your brake fluid level. Low fluid will mean that either your brakes are due for service or you’ve got a leak somewhere in the system. If you live in the rust belt, your car is at an age where brake lines can fail due to rust. Since you’re not complaining about soft brakes or no brakes, you might just be due for a new set of pads & rotors. Maybe you’ve got a small leak in a wheel cylinder in the rear. Those can be more subtle in their failures.
The strut is supposed to turn with the wheel and I’m not going to say more about it because I don’t think the strut is the problem. Sway bars are very prone to breaking the ends off. It’s a large piece of tube steel that gets flattened at the ends. At least one half of that end could be broken by now. The end links also break when the bolt holding all the bushing pieces together rusts out inside of itself. The forward bushings on the lower control arms are very prone to separating between the rubber and the outer sleeve. The rubber will completely fall out of the sleeve allowing the control arm to flex up and down more than it should. Any one of these problems can make a clunking noise on bumps and turns.
Start with checking those parts before giving any attention to the struts.
Good luck.
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