Need Help Diagonosing Rf Clunk, Binding Noises - Corolland: the Toyota Corolla Forums

'02 Corolla RF clunking and binding noises. Passenger yesterday stated he could "feel" it in that vicinity.

Following items replaced in the last four months on RF side:

Wheel bearing

Inner and outer tie rods

Ball joint

Strut

The shop and I both suspected the RF strut that was replaced two weeks ago was a defective out-of-box, because the noises are very indicative of a bad strut mount and bad strut bearing at the mount. The shop replaced the strut today and the noise remains.

Shop also stated nothing is loose and control arm is also in great condition.

At home today, I checked the RF sway bar link and it looks fine. Bushings are not torn. I'm still not ruling that out. Could it be the sway bar itself?

What the heck could be causing this noise? Shop offered to use some kind of microphone to pick-up on noise while driving, but I'd rather avoid the additional cost. Can you guys help me out?

Thank you.

With the binding noise, assuming it comes on immediately during suspension travel - is it better or worse with more or less suspension travel, or does it not matter?

Could be the sway bar - brute force way to check is to disconnect the bar and see if the noise goes away or not - though it would be advisable to not try a run on the highway, no front sway = a handful at highway speeds.

Binding noise leads me to either a bad bearing or bad bushing - clunking noise could be from a number of possible culprits.

CV could be another possibility - coupled with worn engine and transaxle mounts - would sound and act like a bad strut and upper strut mount.

When you state "suspension travel", do you mean as soon as I start driving? If so, yes.

Does it make noise when the car is stationary and you are pushing a corner up and down? What happens if you jack up that corner and spin the wheel, any noise?

Might be worthwhile to hit the bushing with a silicone lubricant or similar - make sure there isn't any binding there to help you concentrate on the clunking noise. Could also be the bushings on the control arms - those can take a beating but eventually they will tear out. Little tougher to check those out - have to use a pretty decent sized lever to pry on them. Same with the lower ball joint.

I know on mine - they (bushings) look OK, but lately the car has been riding a bit rougher than normal. I've seen some 9th gen cars that had bushings that visually look fine, but once removed, completely disintegrated.

I will do the first suggestion tomorrow, jacking the wheel. I did push the car up and down, but the noise didn't exist.

I will also take some photographs of bushings, sway bar, links. The shop told me nothing is loose, and they did use a pry bar.

I will report back tomorrow. Thanks, fish.

Got under the car after work. Discovered the ball joint is torn. It was replaced a month-and-a-half ago. This RF side didn't make any noise until the shop replaced the strut on that side. Called the shop and, of course, the advisor adamantly stated it wasn't "torn the other day" after they replaced the strut again. Perhaps a moderate amount of grease leaked out. Could this indeed cause the noise described in my original post above? Also snapped some other photos. Sway bar link looks fine. I did jack up the car and spin the wheel. No noise.

Looks like the lower ball joint and possibly the control arm bushing are hosed. Did the shop try and pump more grease into the lower ball joint? Looks like grease blew out, possible overfilled, causing the boot to rupture/pop off. Definitely clean that up and see if grease continues to leak out of the boot. As long as the boot is filled with grease, it should be OK - but once water makes it way in there, that ball joint is done.

That control arm bushing looks a little off. The outside portion of the bushing is OK, but the center could be cracked. Might have to put a jack under the wheel while that corner is up and compress the suspension to see if the bushing is OK or not.

The endlinks also look a little funky - just try and wiggle them and see if there is any slop by the endlinks. The endlinks should resist moving, but when they do, it should be smooth - but with no end play (in and out, up and down) at all.

Are you referring to the sway bar links? Also, what do you mean by the control arm being a little off?

I have my invoice showing the RF ball joint was replaced April 21, 2014 at a different shop. It's just too suspicious to me, after the struts were replaced, this new boot is suddenly torn. The noise did not start until after they worked on the car.

Replacing a strut doesn't require the ball joint to even be touched.

Yeah the sway bar links. The control arm bushing looks a little weird to me, looks like the center part of the bushing is showing some cracks - but that might just be an artifact from the camera/flash angle.

Ball joint is definitely FUBAR - I'd get on the shop and have them come clean on that. No way a bushing will tear out like that unless someone at the shop accidentally knicked the boot or otherwise screwing around with it.

Will find out tomorrow what shop says. Sway bar links are cheap, but I don't see any tears on boots. I did wiggle them and they resist moving.

What is a good way to get on the shop an have them come clean on that?

That is a tough one - depends on the shop techs and the owner. Some will come clean after some pressuring on your part, as those guys are truly good people at heart - others, they'll deny it to their dying day. Unless you caught them red-handed, like from a security camera (think those FOX news autoshop stings) - might never know.

Might try with the technicians and work your way up - most of the tech staff, from my experience, are more willing to talk than the service writer or the owner.

Delayed today. It will either be tomorrow or Friday now. I will keep you posted. We had a lot of rain today, but I am still driving it.

I visited the problem shop today. The service advisor stated "I can say one-hundred-percent we didn't do it" when I showed him the invoice from 04/21/14 showing it was replaced. I was not confrontational with Dave, but I told him "you can see where I'd be suspicious, right?" In return, he was not confrontational.

So, the ball joint will be replaced by a different shop on Tuesday. I will let you know if that solves the binding and clunking sounds.

Thank you again for your help, Fish.

Update: Turns out the boot is not torn. I've never had a ball joint with a grease fitting before. There was too much grease in the boot and it seeped out. So, the shop was being completely honest.

Now it's on to your thoughts on the control arm and sway bar link.

The shop is offering to use some type of microphone installed while driving the car to pinpoint the culprit. It would cost $45 for this service. Do you think it's worth it?

Good to hear the ball joint boot is not ripped. Sure looked like it though - I've overfilled boots before but they never looked that bad, even before I wiped up the excess grease.

Microphone would have a tough time pinpointing the noise - unless it is one of those fancy sound pressure variants - but I doubt a shop would invent the money in something like that as it is $$$ and needs calibrating constantly. If it is an accelerometer - might be more useful. That is a tough call - if it pinpoints the noise - $45 is super cheap, if it doesn't - you'll just flushed $45 down the toilet that could have gone toward the repair.

Your call on that - only bright point is that it is less than your garden variety diagnostic charge - usually shops charge you a minimum of $85 before they do any diagnostics. Some even go beyond that and charge you a "garage fee" on top of the diagnostic fee.

Good news: Sway bar links and sway bar bushing at fault internally. Dry and binding Parts are cheap and I can do this myself. I will post some photos when done. I have to agree when I saw all that grease and I was hearing the noise, I suspected the joint 100-percent.

Shop only charged 45 out-the-door for the diagnosis. Imagine what the dealership would have quoted.

Thank you again for your help.

Nice! Looks good. Which ones did you end up getting? MOOG endlinks / bushings?

No, NAPA. At this point, I just have to replace the VSV at the canister (still don't know if I should risk getting a used one off eBay) and figure out the keyless remote issue. 231,250 and going strong.

Ah, NAPA - good choice. The welds looks a bit too clean to be MOOG, but the stamped number crosses over to their part number - I was just curious.

Yup, these cars will keep on trucking, as long as you put in the time to do maintenance. Mine doesn't have as many miles as yours - but I'm hoping it can hold out for a handful of more years for my son's first car.