Ok, maybe someone can help me track this noise down. I just noticed it for the first time today in the parking lot at work, but it sounded pretty loud. When I turn sharp, pretty much full lock, left or right, like doing circles in first gear in the parking lot, I can hear a loud clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk that follows with the speed of the car. I don't hear it if I coast around the corner in neutral. I can also feel this a bit, like a surging kind of... My first thought was cv joints, but I thought those went out slowly, and you'd hear it more turning one way than the other. So, is it a differential that has gone bad? I just changed the rear diff fluid less than 1k miles ago, no metal chunks on the magnet. The tranny fluid has been changed in the last 5k miles, again the fluid looked ok, but I do have some bearing noise that I thought was a bearing on the main shaft in the tranny. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Joel
my first thought was the cv shafts... cause either way full lock turning it wouldnt matter which side as you are still full lock...
take of your wheel and look at your CV. If it looks like a grease bomb exploded down there are there is no CV boot, well there you go. If its not that, then pt the wheel back on nice and tight and pull back and forth on the top part of the wheel. if there is any noticeable play your wheel bearing will need replacement.
yeah, I hope it's just a cv joint, that'd be easier to fix. I did inspect the boots not too long ago and didn't see any that were torn. I checked the rear wheel bearings when I changed the rear diff fluid, and they sounded quiet and I couldn't feel any play, I didn't check the fronts though, so I'll look at those. I'm just surprised how it suddenly showed up, it wasn't making this noise yesterday, and today it's pretty bad. And I take the same two tight corners in the parking lot at work every day, so I think I should have noticed if it was doing it before. oh well... thanks
Did you disassemble your front suspension recently? A poor reinstall makes the spring clunk when turning at full lock.
does it only occur when you fully lock your steering wheel? is the clunk loud enough to kinda vibrate the car as well? could be a bad center diff.
I was going to suggest that it might be normal limited-slip rear diff behavior. My ol' Caprice groans and creaks and makes a th-th-thunk,thunk,thunk sound that you can actually feel, and it's from the rear diff. (My RS doesn't exhibit any such behavior, but I suspect my rear diff came from an "L" model, since that's where the TRUNK came from) However, if it just RECENTLY started happening, well nevermind, I'm talking out of my rear-end. (no pun intended)
The suspension hasn't been taken apart recently. Last thing I've done in the front was pads and rotors, and I double checked the strut-hub bolts at that time. That was a few months ago. Lue, yeah, that's pretty much exactly it. I didn't think center diff went out as often on 5spd as often as they did on auto, but it sounds possible. My car doesn't have limited slip rear diff, but I do kinda know what you mean, I've heard that on other cars and it is similar to what's going on. Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to see how it is on the drive home tonight, I'll just go in as straight of a line as possible to get home.
well it is surprising that yoru diff went out this early too. the diff shares the same fluids are your tranny so it's not due to bad fluids. could be your tires, unequal wear or too much ebrake action or something that's causing the center diff to work harder than it should.
Yeah, it's kinda strange that something like that is failing at 98k miles. The past few months I've been driving really easy (shifting before 3k), to get better mileage. I've always had good, properly inflated tires and haven't done ebrake stuff. The donut spare does show some wear from the previous owners, I've never had a flat. I don't know how long they ran the spare on the car, but that would have been at least more than a year ago that that happened. Otherwise I did two winter driving schools at dctc, the second one (in Feb) I drove the car pretty hard, but nothing out of the ordinary happened and the only time I spun the tires was on ice, I mean really, that's the only time my car _can_ spin the tires at all. Just a little bit of everything adding up I guess.
well, after work I tried a few circles in the parking lot and the car was totally fine, no noise at all. It drove home just fine, I couldn't really turn sharp enough in my driveway to test it, but it seems ok now. weird... makes me think center diff, maybe the viscous unit is binding sometimes? is that possible?
