I'm losing faith in my car. Seems I can't keep up with the continuous issues. Today I noticed a very loud rattling. I just replaced the steering rack and tie rod ends, got an alignment and all was good. But today, I drove about 200 miles and noticed something new. Any little bump gave a loud rattle. I did briefly look things over when I got home but noticed nothing obvious. But when I push down on the front of the car I get a distinctive noise from what I think is the drivers side front shock. It is a year old rebuilt shock. Is there anything in there that could make such a noise?

 

I cannot speak from personal experience fortunately, but from reading this and the UK

forum there have been a few cases where a strut has been rattling.

In one or two of these cases owners have had to spend a lot of effort to find the source however

you appear to have identified the problem straight away.

Another source of front end rattling is the ARB (sway bar) bushes. This can be quite common

so you need to be sure before proceeding.

Search this forum for actual posts.

 

Turns out that when I had it aligned last week they didn't tighten the lock nuts on the tie rod ends. All better now.

 

That was lucky that you caught it before it done any permanent damage.

 

Hi Drb007,

I hope they apologized profusely and gave you a HUGE discount, as in a FULL refund, because if one of those nuts had come off while you were traveling down the highway, you might not have been able to give us this update on the source of the knock because you would not have Internet access in Heaven!

I agree with trosty - GOOD THING you caught it!

Cheers,

Don

 

Just glad I took the time to jack it up and inspect it. Wonder what the shop would have said if I took it back in to them to figure it out...

 

You should take it back to them. They need to redo the alignment because the adjustment has changed. The lock nut is there to hold the adjustment, with it loose I have no doubt that the alignment is no longer perfect. They need to check it at least for free. You'll pay for it in tire wear if you don't.