Thread: Popping noise from passenger side when in gear.

Applying the brake, with the transmission in drive, and pushing the gas down, from 1000 to 2000 RPM's I hear a popping sound coming from the passenger side. It sounds like popcorn popping or grinding your teeth. The CV axle itself turns a little bit as the motor rocks back. While in drive and sitting still sometimes I hear a rattle noise that's similar to the popping, shifting to neutral usually stops it. This noise is only in drive, 3rd, 2nd, or 1st. It does not do it in reverse, neutral, or park. Is this the axle going bad, or the whole transmission?

it could be a bad axle, in the worse case it could be your differential. Not to jinx u or anything but my unlce had a monte that had the same symptoms, his diff bust through the side of the trans case.

I don't know that much about transmissions, someone told me that they've only heard of differentials on 4 wheel drive trucks. Is the differential inside the transmission? I was going to just buy a new axle and switch it out, but if this is internal, looks like I'm looking for a new tranny.

Appears to be the motor mount. Put the car up on ramps, had a friend hold the brake and give it gas, still heard the sound. Put a jack under the oil pan and transmission pan (with boards in between) and jacked it up a bit. No noise. In drive with the brake depressed, I lowered the jack and as the motor sat down it started knocking again. Gonna pull the mount and replace it tomorrow, will report back when it's replaced if this fixes the issue.

Confirmed, issue resolved by replacing motor mount and/or transmission mount. I say and or because just the motor mount might have been enough, but I had the cash to throw at it, so I got both. The car no longer pops or grinds when loading the drivetrain via brake torque. Looking at the motor mount side by side with the old one, the old one sits about an inch lower than the new one and the center pin was starting to be rubbed flat between the top two studs from the motor sitting on it. I replaced it with another hydraulic mount even though I wanted to get a solid rubber one. Orielly didn't stock and apparently couldn't even order the solid rubber one. It came with a lifetime warranty so if the ***** goes out again, I'll just pull it and replace it. It'll probably outlast the car though. One thing of note though, when I finally got the thing to line up and sit down and I went to put the nuts on, one of the bottom studs twisted off. I wasn't even really tightening it yet, certainly not strong arming it or anything and the damn thing snapped. I had to use a breaker bar to get the old one loose, so I figured I had a good idea of how tight to go, but apparently I was way off. It might have just been a bad stud, I don't know. I took it back to replace it and tried to get a solid rubber one only to find out they didn't carry it and couldn't order it. It was going to take another day to get one in, unless I went to another location. On my way to the other location I stopped at an Advance Auto Parts to see if they had a solid rubber one but they didn't, just the exact same part, but the studs looked like they were made of a different grade so I just bought theirs, and I'm going to take the other back and just get my money back. I'd of waited and ordered one from zzp or somewhere else, but I don't have time to wait. Thanks to all that replied, this site has become a major boon to me in the past few months.