Well, its a mystery to me.
It sounds kind of like a bad cv joint but they've both been replaced. The noise has happened with the old and new axles. Also, both hubs have been replaced. Visual inspection of the control arms--those look fine. There is no play or movement in them.
The noise seems to happen randomly and I can't duplicate it on cue. It is frequent, though. Shaking the car, pushing on it up and down, braking back and forth--forward, reverse.......I noticed that it kind of does it sometimes when I start the car. So I figured maybe its the lower motor mount. So I replaced it today--and it needed it badly. But that wasn't the noise. I thought for sure it would have been it.
I've also replaced the upper motor mounts and visually inspected the trans mount today and it is fine.
Sitting in the car, it sounds like its coming from the front right but I cannot be sure. The only thing I can think of at this point would be steering rack related or sway bar linkage. It does do it on occasion when turning the wheels. But it also does it while going straight. Its seems to happen when the weight of the car shifts or something, not necessarily just hitting a bump. It does it sometimes and sometimes not.
I took it to a shop a few months ago to see if they could find it. They told me it was my brake calipers banging on the knuckle and wanted to charge me 500 bucks to replace them. Well, I took it home and took the right caliper apart and regreased it. There's a little movement in it, but I could never get it to bang or knock against the steering knuckle. The other caliper was the same story. I also could not force the car to make the sound the same way they said they did.
Oh, the strut mounts have been replaced as well.
Im out of ideas. Except that I noticed while looking under it just a few minutes ago that the cat is not hanging on the hangers. Maybe.....
That probably came off when I jacked the engine up to change the lower engine mount, though.
Any other ideas anyone?
