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I forgive the wall of text, and truly hope you read it as I’m fairly confident to get a “big picture” of what’s been happening it’s all related-ish. I’ve included any and all “symptoms” as to give a potential “oh, this sounds exactly like X part is bad or going bad”, you know?
At this point, I haven’t been able to find anything that’s loose or has movement. Everything in the actual wheel-well seems all solid, no movement to write home about, etc. I can’t seem to reproduce the problem with it just sitting, and that’s just bouncing it up/down (returns to level almost instantly), pushing it side-to-side, etc. I haven’t had time to get a solid look at the mounts/bushings in the R&P like Eric describes but the clunk really does sound like something is just “loose” and banging around freely when hitting bumps/front-end “flexing”.
I’ve taken this car (05 Neon) to 3 different mechanics with none of them supposedly able to find (mind you, none of them have charged me any sort of diagnostic fees so they might simply be looking for the obvious without being guaranteed money) what’s causing my clunks. I even told them I’d pay an hour labor for them to really take a look at it but none of them seem to want to charge me? lol
So that’s three mechanics, none of which could actually find anything that would cause clunks like I’m having, which is simply something “loose” banging around on bumps or something “bottoming out” when hitting bumps. Seems to come from the side the bump is actually hit on. Can feel the “clunk” through the steering wheel as well as the pedals.
Honestly though, not to re-hash another thread of mine but here’s a current running tally of what’s been happening and what’s been fixed.
Symptoms:
Growl above 35mph when wheel is straight and turned right. – SOLVED PARTIALLY (more on this below)
Clunks when hitting SOME bumps AND feeling it in the pedals/steering wheel, all at varying speeds and sometimes not at all.What’s been replaced:
Upper, Lower, Driver-side/Tranny motor mounts – I did NOT replace the “middle” mount so the clunks (although they come from BOTH sides on the front-end depending on the bump hit, as well as feeling it in the pedals/steering wheel) may or may not be related to this at all.Driver/Passenger bearings (reading this is needed for full context) – First place I ever went to said driver bearing, which I assumed with the above symptoms. Needless to say they replaced the driver bearing and nothing changed. I took it back since I needed the car for the week so the next week I took it back for them to do the passenger side (for free) and all growling is gone.
The real interesting part to me – BOTH bearings were replaced ~1 week ago and the second shop I took it to (literally for the front-end clunks) called me up and said “both rear control arm bushings are bad (which I thought as well) and your passenger bearing is bad”. Now, this second location is a different “branch” of this family owned service center and had literally zero knowledge of any prior work performed at the first branch. Needless to say I just told them to replace the entire control arm, with the bushing and new ball joint already pressed in. So I have 2 new control arms, ca bushings and ball joints. They told me that although there’s literally zero complaints of growls or anything like that it was “bad” since the hub was loose? Either way, taking it in tomorrow to have them replace that (free this time as well lol, so I’d find it hard to believe this place is going to eat the cost of these parts AND labor unless these things are really bad – and yes, they do have the bearing as I seen the one they ordered for it so it’s not a “scam” going on or anything) and balance/rotate/alignment.
BOTH WHOLE Control Arm Assemblies (with bushings and ball joints already pressed in) – Both rear control arms bushings were bad and yes I know they were. To give some further context to this the passenger side rear control arm bushing was replaced exactly 1 year ago. Now, something to add to the control arm aspect is that yes, I did need an alignment before they did it but when I got the car back (pisses me off that they apparently don’t test drive vehicles after replacing parts……) the alignment was worse than before the control arms (and they swear up and down that control arms won’t affect the alignment to the extend I’m talking) and I mean the steering is loose as hell, oddly when hitting bumps with the left wheel doesn’t cause any noticeable “jerk” when hitting bumps but the passenger side is a whole different story. Also, (my friends all call me a hypochondriac at this point, but let’s all be real we all know when something just isn’t “right” with out cars…)
Now, this is going to sound funny with the hypochondriac statement above, but I SWEAR since getting the vehicle back after replacing the control arms, depending on just how much of a “dip” either wheel “goes in”, it seems like when it’s coming back “out” of the dip it “spins” real quick before gaining traction again is the best way I could describe it. Think “spins” in terms of what it “feels like” when doing a burn-out. The same “feeling” of a “spin” seemed to happen a few times when hitting 50mph and shifting from one gear to another. Until the alignment is done and this new passenger bearing is put in, I’m not going to worry too much about this yet. LOL
So, that’s 2 locations that actually replaced parts. Both of which I knew the parts were bad, so no I know it’s not “scam mechanics” or anything like that. The 3rd location (not related to the above “branches” was purely with “hey I have some clunks, go for a test drive so you can hear them”, which they did. They didn’t charge me a dime, so I’m really unsure if they spent any real amount of time digging for the cause but needless to say called me up to say “I looked at everything and can’t find anything that sticks out. So outside of throwing parts at it, I really have nothing to tell you.”
So that’s three mechanics, none of which could actually find anything that would cause clunks like I’m having, which is simply something “loose” banging around on bumps or something “bottoming out” when hitting bumps. Seems to come from the side the bump is actually hit on. Can feel the “clunk” through the steering wheel as well as the pedals.
I keep telling myself, as much as it definitely clunks, and the mechanic who actually took me for a test drive felt and heard the clunk saying “I can’t find anything, as much as I know it obviously clunks” that I’m just going to get this passenger bearing replaced (again) and get an alignment and drive it till it breaks. No-one wants their car to break and I definitely don’t need it breaking when doing highway speeds with the kids in the car either though. 😛
Thanks again!
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I am sure they looked at the sway bar bushings and tie rods for any type of play so I will say this… Recently I worked on an Infiniti which was having the same symptoms as your…
I did my best to isolate the noise and replaced sway bar links (needed replaced) and inner and outer tie rods….. It did nothing… He even had the new MOOG sway bar links that I installed removed and had Infiniti put on new OEM sway bars links… Still the noise remained… I couldn’t explain it… I beat on everything with a sledge and could not find a similar noise or anything…
The owner takes it to another tech and he cannot find anything wrong with it…
Then the owner takes it to an Infiniti dealer and they cannot find anything wrong with it either… (they did say something about strut bushings/bearings but it was a guess and would cost big $$$$$)… so the owner just lived with it…
Recently the owner told me he was going to trade in the car and all of a sudden on the CARFAX report it showed up that it had been in a wreck… He had never been informed of this…. Funny thing is that it showed up only a month or two before he was trying to trade in the car (it was reported by Infiniti)….. He was pissed and said he never knew about that and the value of his car was significantly reduced… also he had owned the car around 3 years (he was the second owner)…
So… Infiniti flys in some engineers/techs from California to the dealership to look at the car… What they said explained it all… The noise we were hearing was the metal in the car flexing when hitting bumps… The car was not properly repaired and was sold from an Infiniti dealer as having no issues….. They offered him to buy the car outright or repair it…. He let them buy it back…
I don’t know if the story is BS but may explain some things….
Has your car ever been in an accident?
-Karl
Hey Karl, I am the OE (since 6 miles baby! heh) since Jan 2006 and yes, I rear-ended a van in 2007. Dodge dealer fixed it all up, drove exactly like it did before the accident.
Since then, the usual W/T parts like pads/rotors/tires, last year driver outter tie-rod was bad, just replaced both. Up until about 2 months ago, never had a complaint about anything though.
Either way, the accident was under 30mph, no-one was hurt, fluids were down but can’t remember the specifics on the bill or anything like that.
You know, oddly enough and not to get myself off on a wild goose chase, ever since replacing those 3 motor mounts (the suspect one to me is the tranny side) there’s been vibrations (extremely common with a ton of different cars but I tend to read neon specific forums :P) since I just went the crap AM Anchor brand and just recently a “shimmy” noise coming from the driver fender right next to where the tranny mount is attached to the frame but it’s just been too damn cold to do any real work on it.
Outside of the “shimmy” noise (2 pieces of metal rubbing together, noise completely goes away when I barely even touch the fender) and the vibration I couldn’t imagine that mount being the root issue of clunking noises that come from both sides of the front-end? Before you fully suspect the engine mounts, the clunks were there before I replaced them. 😛
Anytime you have collision damage it’s the #1 suspect. Body shops never get paid enough money to do repairs because insurance companies don’t like to pay out. That said, things often get overlooked. I’ve seen it many, many, many, many times in my career.
A chassis ear may be able to lead you to the culprit. If you could find one. If not then perhaps the ‘hammer’ method can help.
More info here.
http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/diagnosing-noises-in-your-car
With problems like these it is very hard to offer advice. Unless we can hear the noise we’re just guessing, and even then we’d still be guessing. Noise diagnosis is a science in and of itself.
Keep us posted.
[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=90547]Anytime you have collision damage it’s the #1 suspect. Body shops never get paid enough money to do repairs because insurance companies don’t like to pay out. That said, things often get overlooked. I’ve seen it many, many, many, many times in my career.[/quote]
Funny you just replied, I literally was logging in to update the situation about the shop today.
First though, collision damage from 7 years ago could be suspect for this clunking? :-/
This shit is seriously getting annoying now though and I think I found a “branch” (albeit locally owned) service center I will make it my life mission to boycott and ensure they receive nothing but negative reviews.
So, as I was mentioning 2 weeks ago a branch replaced both driver and passenger bearing. All growling noise was gone. They couldn’t figure out (two times) what could have been making the clunking noises, so I went to the other branch and they said “your passenger bearing is bad, and we can’t find the clunking”.
I just get back today from them replacing the bearing (free, but still) and getting an alignment done and they were all like “oh, you have some major camber problems, in both the front and back” (both seem to be pass side according to this printout) and wanted me to pay something like $325 for literally 4 bolts so they could adjust the camber? According to the printout the pass front was -0.6 (driver was 0.4) and pass rear was -1.2 (driver was 0.2) so I said screw that, just do the alignment.
Needless to say the “after” printout shows pass front being -0.4 (driver 0.3) and pass rear being -1.1 (drive 0.1) so I’m curious if I’ve never had camber problems before or somehow within a year (exactly to this date is when I had an alignment last) camber became an issue AND you need special bolts (literally) to fix it?………..
Oh, and just for the record, I think I’ve watch a huge chunk of the video library Eric, I already tried the hammer hitting. The extremely frustrating part about the clunking is how it’s seemingly impossible to get to happen when not driving it, SLOWLY, over bumps. At that, it’s still only some bumps.
I ask the question of “Do you think it’s any particular coincidence that I’ve went through a passenger control arm bushing last year, another one this year (same side), 2 passenger side bearings, within 2 weeks of each other (although there was no audible or feelable (it’s a word!) problems in the 2 week timespan of when it was originally installed”? and get “probably not”. I know cars are finicky little bastards but to a layman, using common sense it would at least seem to warrant a “you know, that is some crazy coincidences in the least”.
Camber issues that you can adjust may be the result of the collision damage. Bent parts are not adjustable. Could be lower control arms, or their mounts. Normally when I find issues like that I can’t adjust, it’s been in a collision in the past and something is bent somewhere. Starting to look more and more like something in the chassis from the collision.
Keep us posted.
[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=90580]Camber issues that you can adjust may be the result of the collision damage. Bent parts are not adjustable. Could be lower control arms, or their mounts. Normally when I find issues like that I can’t adjust, it’s been in a collision in the past and something is bent somewhere. Starting to look more and more like something in the chassis from the collision.
Keep us posted.[/quote]
Hey Eric, I understand things just “wear” and stuff, but with having alignments done after the accident and this being the first year camber is an issue in terms of supposedly buying a camber kit to fix it, you wouldn’t deem any of that out of the ordinary in any regard? Just curious since they are trying to say $75 a bolt basically, seems a little “funny” to me?
As I said earlier, both control arms were just replaced last week (bad bushings, but I figured what the hell I’ll take the new ball joints and actual control arm as well) so unsure on that.
When I was like “what???” since they made it sound like camber was unadjustable, they were like “basically it’s smaller bolts” and I was just like… dumbfounded since I never had anyone mention anything like that to me. :-/
I’d be really frustrated if 7 years after a collision things could be going downhill lol
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