Hey everyone I'm fairly new to the community and need some opinions. I have a 2006 3.2TL which was gifted to me about a year ago, great condition with only 97k miles at the time. Only problem was a weird noise coming from the passenger side tire, almost sounded loose especially over potholes and speedbumps. It almost sounded like it would *clunk* and bounce, with a loose feeling to the bounce (no give). My dad and I replaced the shocks and struts- no change. So I had a shop give me an opinion and they pointed out some on ripped bushings on the lower control arms... dad and I fixed that... no change! Today I got another opinion from Big O, they're guess was the Hub and bearing, so I let them do the work on her. Just drove her home and i still feel the tire almost loosely slightly making a noise when dropping off of a speed bump. It's driving me nuts because although there's been a slight improvement with every repair nobody can figure out what is causing this issue- not my dad with 20+ years as a mobile mechanic, or the shops near my house. (btw, I highly doubt it's the upper control arm)

Has anyone else ever experienced this? Any Ideas on what it could be? I also have brand new tires

Excuse my old rotor, but here's the passenger side in the process of installing a brand new lower control arm

 

Front and rear swaybar bushings and/or endlinks can cause this. I had this issue when I reused the endlinks after installing new suspension on my 3G TL. Also it could be your outer or inner tie rods, check for play and see if they move to much.

 

Your brake pad hardware is missing in the pic.

Do you just have it off in the pic?

If its really missing, the pads could be rattling in the caliper.

 

Ditto for the strut bolt...

 

Did you check side motor mount and lower ball joint? These are the weak link in the TL, also as other point out about the tire rod and swaybar link.

 

Another vote here to at least check the sway bar links first (easy). That was responsible for a clunk I had.

 

Best way to check sway bar link is to have car on the ground and hold the link with your hand and have somebody else rock the car side to side. You shouldn't feel any "clicking" in the link - it should be smooth. If you feel anything most likely link is bad.

 

Clunking especially over speed bumps is indicative of bad swaybar end links, super easy to diagnose as mentioned above. Fairly easy to fix as well.
If not them, were the balljoints ever changed while you've changed the other stuff? Again, super easy to diagnose while the front end is up on jack-stands and rocking the wheel from both the 12 & 6 o'clock positions, as well as 3 & 9.

On the plus side, after you've finally found the culprit of the clunking, almost your entire front end will be brand new, good for another ~150K miles