I hear a bad clunk when going over bumps in my 99 2.3 cl. I can almost tell it is a joint seperating. Although, the clunk seems to go away while I am breaking. I have replaced the upper control arms and tie rod ends on both sides. It is strange that is goes away while breaking.

I have inspected the suspension to make sure everything is tight and also the braking system.

Anyone think it is my lower ball joints? Does that makes sense?

 

damn, cant believe you posted this at the same time I did on another board. I have a similar issue except it only happens while accellerating, and goes away once I hit like 40mph. It's a hollow clunking sound, almost sounds like you're driving on a flat tire...

 

when it happened to me it was the rubber bushings disintegrating

 

Thanks for the idea. What bushings did find were the problem?
When this happened to you. Did your noise go away you were braking as your went over the bumps? Or did the noise happen at all times.

I can't seem to figure out why braking helps the noise.

 

It was usually while braking, it would cause the shock tower to move forward

I have the write-up at home somewhere, but it was the upper shock tower bushings I believe

 

Thanks for the info!

 

my sway bar ends made the same noise.

 

have u had ur wheels off recently? i had this problem and it ended up being a loose rear wheel. i had the same clunking sound only it was in sync with the wheel speed. it turned out the lugs were tight but the rear rotor was canted a touch over the hub so when i put the wheel on and tightened everything down it still clunked but when i applied the brakes it held the rotor tightly to the hub and the noise stopped. just somthing to check out

 

Same exact thing happened to me with my right front wheel. I was like damn wtf IS that?! Haha.

 

I had the same noise and it ended up being my sway bar bushings (not the endlinks)

 

Replaced the sway bar bushings, ones toward the middle not then ends...noise went away!

 

I have a noise in the rear suspension that sounds like a bushing is loose, especially when going over bumps or uneven road slowly. The noise is only over bumps.

I replaced the upper strut bushings a couple of years back along with the rear struts and upper control arms and that did not solve the problem. Now that it is a few years later I have decided to do something about the noise.

Could it be the rear sway bar bushings? They do look a bit dry and cracked.

The noise does go away when passengers are in the back seat. So it seems that downward pressure on the issue takes care of it.

Any thoughts?

 

could definitely be the sway bar bushings, replace them with PU bushings

 

sorry for the n00bishness, but does anyone have a picture of exactly where 'said' sway bar bushing is located?

I jacked up the front of my car and inspected everything thoroughly and couldn't find anything odd except for the already known copious amounts of cv axle grease splattered everywhere...and one of my bushings was significantly loose (don't know how or why the nut got unseated that much). It's the bushing that has 2 seperate halves with a gap in the middle. I noticed that on both sides the lower bushings were starting to crack. I torqued it back down but the passenger front end is still making that clunking noise...and it seems to be getting progressively worse

 

^ when I had my noise issue it was the bushings on the shock tower assembly, not the sway bar bushings

 

^^ damn never thought of that...I'll be sure to check it out thanks brutha...but now I'm kinda fearing this may be a wheel bearing issue as it only makes the noise while im accelerating and giving the car gas....otherwise nothing