by GVARGAS27, June 3, 2014
my 2006 sounds like it has a flat tire. I thought is was a tire so i replaced all four. The sound is rythmic with the rotation of the tires. It is coming from the front end and it is worse when turning to the right, however its constant upon acceleration. It stops if i turn left. It does not stop upon letting off the gas it just slows the noise down with the speed of the car. i was told that the lower control arm is loose. would this cause such a noise.
Pretty hard to believe that a lower arm is loose - that would definitely make the car feel unsafe when driving, lots of excessive movement when driving.
Could be a number of things - bad strut, bad strut mount, bad or worn bushings, bad axle / CV joint, worn or damaged hub, bent wheels (changing tires would not fix this), loose lug nuts, bad lower ball joint, bad steering rack, worn tie rod ends, out of alignment, etc.
What's the history of the car - how many miles, any significant happened to the car recently, or when you first noticed the noise?
It has a lot of miles 196,000. i ran over something in the road a few weeks ago and immediately after started feeling this. The lug nuts are not loose, the tie rod ends were ok. It does need an alignment. The cv joint looked ok except for some grease on the inside where it goes into the transmission( if that makes sense?). There is not really any excessive movement when driving, Its a very loud rotational sound. I immediately thought i had a flat. The wheel bearings were tested only by jacking the car up and checking the movement of the tire. I am afraid by driving it that I will damage something further and I am trying to repair without the help of a mechanic shop due to finances. Do you have any suggestions on things i could check or look to figure out what it is exactly
Lower control arm may well have free play at its rear chassis mount bushing. I replaced both which were either ripped or completely unbonded. I burned off the original rear bushings and replaced them with Energy Suspension's urethane bushings. You can't get a replacement pressed-in rubber bushing, but you can get a complete control arm for less than OEM. Replace in pairs. You can jack it up, and confirm by prying rear of control arm up and down, while inspecting other likely suspension and steering components... Inner tie-rod ends, ball joints, wheel bearings, struts.
http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/x,carcode,1432846,parttype,10401
That makes it a bit more complicated - lots of miles and possible damage from road debris can be tough to track down.
Definitely need to check over the suspension pretty throughly. No sense getting an alignment until you find out if there is a bad bushing or not - though it might be worthwhile to eventually take it a shop that has lifetime alignment - as changing anything under there might require a new alignment.
Dom has a good test for the control arm. You can do similar checks on the lower ball joint, tie-rod ends, etc. Grease from the CV joint on the axle side could be from of couple of different things. I'd start by cleaning that area up and see if the grease / oil is actually coming from the joint of from something else.
If you have access to a lift - might be helpful. Some shops may let you borrow the lift after normal business hours - can't hurt to ask them.
Right. If the CV joint boot is split and allowed grease to escape and dirt ingested, CV joint may be damaged and noisy under load and when turning right... It'd be more obvious if we could hear it, feel it, experience it in real time.
