Help me diagnose my problem

anarchistchiken · May 30, 2006

anarchistchiken said:
So last night I'm just driving down the freeway, not speeding or racing or anything, and all of a sudden a really sharp clicking/banging noise started coming from my front left wheel. I freaked out and thought the wheel was about to fall off, so I stopped immediatly and checked it as best I could with no tools or light beside my cell phone. I didn't see anything wrong, so I drove the two or three miles home and parked it, and the whole way back to my house it was making the same clicking banging noise, and the longer I drove the more intense it got. Later that night my friend, who is a mechanic, came over and I rolled the car up the driveway and let it coast down (when there's any load, positive or negative on the engine the sound goes away completely) so that he could hear the sound, but to my suprise the clicking had been replaced by an awful squeeling, and we both think that sounds like the bearing, but the sound it was making before was definately a CV joint sound.

I posted that on another forum about a week ago, and I finally had a chance to start taking stuff apart today. We took the wheels off and started spinning the rotors to see if we could pin down the noise (it was clicking again at this point, the grinding went away) before we started pulling the axles out, and thank god we did because we realized that if you hit the brakes with the rotors going 30 mph in 5th gear (idle speed, if you've ever wondered) absolutely nothing happens. The engine stayed at 800 rpms, the clicking sound stayed almost exactly the same, but neither of the axles were spinning.

Oh yeah, the noise was constant when I was driving it except for when there was a load on the engine/transmission. The noise completely stopped when I would slow down by engine braking or accelerate. That happened in every gear, and that's the only thing that changed the sound at all.

anarchistchiken · May 31, 2006

Bump. Anybody?

falsedawn · May 31, 2006

If you can hear the sound with the wheels off and car jacked up, can you not pinpoint more precisely where the sound is coming from? If the noise occurs when the axles aren't spinning, then all I can think of is something in the gearbox maybe?

roswel · Jun 4, 2006

I had what seems to be the exact same problem.

I did my brakes awhile back. after a few days i heard this clicking and sort of grinding but really only when i was at constant speed. under accel. or braking, no noise. couldn't find a problem visually. i thought it was a bearing or CV so i took it to a dealer. dealer told be i needed $1100 brake work. obviously i said screw you. just as i was leaving one mechanic stopped me, took a look, left for a sec, and came back back with a lug wrench. the one wheel was almost falling off cause the lugs came loose. my fault, just dumb i guess. 2 secs worth of work and car drove perfect again.

moral of the story don't underestimate the power of those nuts. we forget they are there sometimes but if they come off it can be costly.

Protege52003 · Jun 4, 2006

wheel bearing maybe?????

Help me diagnose my problem

anarchistchiken

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anarchistchiken

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falsedawn

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roswel

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Protege52003

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