I just had this issue crop up about 2 days ago. Its a clicking or knocking sort of noise. its somewhat faint, but I feel as if I can almost feel it. It occurs almost exclusively when I am not accelerating, or if I am very very light on the throttle (coasting about). the problem occurs when I am in neutral as well (at speed of course). The noise only occurs while moving, and is relative to the speed of the car, not the speed of the engine. I cant seem to pin point what side of the car its coming from. I say its the right side, but a passenger of mine said it was the left. this is making me think somewhere in the center.

Off the bat, I feel like alot of people are going to jump to CV joints/Axle. It could be I guess. I have an 04 with almost 120k on it. I had another theory, of it being the Front Left caliper, as when I did a brake job a few months ago, I noticed a small chunk missing out of the boot for the piston.

More about the noise though. It seems to occur at just about any speed. I can still notice it a bit at parking lot speeds, but its pretty subtle. at around 40-50, I feel like its about resonance. I dont think it occurs much higher then that since the frequency of the noise is so high that it just sort of isnt noticeable.

So does anyone have any suggestions for maybe a test to try on my drive home, or and suggestions as to what else issue could be? Any help/advice is appreciate.

 

Just drove home from work. So it seems as if the problem only really persists if im driving straight. If im turning, breaking, or accelerating, it seems to go away. althought if doing any of those lightly, it might still do it. Im going to try crawl underneath my car and observe the axles, maybe look for a broken boot. I hope its that simple.

 

Got home, Jacked up the car. Inspected the boots. they all seemed to be in pretty good shape. Put the car in neutral, gave spun the wheels, and the source of the problem emerged.

Im still not 100% where the noise is coming from but im really leaning towards the caliper now. when on the drivers side, the noise was very audible. its kind of a "click pop" which occurs at seemingly random times. I made sure all the clips were on good, made sure everything was attached firmly. I also tried damping several components with my hand, but it made no difference to the noise. From the first angle in the video, the sound definitely sounds like its coming from the wheel area. Anyways, id love any brake experts opinion, but I believe this is just a seized (or seizing) piston

 

Is there any play on the hub bearings?

 

Did you ever figure out what the problem was? My TL is doing the exact same thing.

 

I had a front end click/clunk over choppy bumps, ended up being sway bar end links. Diagnosed it by disconnecting one end. It went away, so I ordered parts. wasn't obviously worn, but enough to make noise under use.

 

Just took my car in today. Mine is bad carrier bearings in the trans. It's what I thought it was.