I purchased my '98 XK8 coupe new in 10/97. It has 48K miles and had the front bushings replaced about 8 years ago. Recently I've been hearing a brief scraping sound that seems to be coming from the left front tire area. My thought was that the tire is scraping the wheel well but there is no evidence of that even with inspection on a lift. It happens only briefly as you might expect if going over a bump or dip but it happens on smooth, flat roads typically upon gentle acceleration between 40 - 50 mph. Today there was actually a brief buzzing sound as well just one time. My indie guy is baffled as am I. Located in SW Florida. Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

Bump caused noise recently sway bar issues for me. Loose sway bar bracket. It wasn't subtle though.

have you checked ride height (bottom edge of wheel well to center of wheel) should be 15.75 front. How close are you? [Indicates bad shock mount]

Can you take wheel off? How does upper wishbone bushings look? (Wish I could remember the noise mine made when bad, but it was a lot scarier than a brushing noise)

 

Make sure your brake disc backing plate has good clearance all around. A little flexing might bring it into contact with the disc.

 

I believe there was a known issue with some of the back plates twisting and you need to fit an extra washer to straighten it up.

i thought i saw a tech bulletin about it on jagrepair.com but site doesn't seem to be working right now.

 

Thanks all for those ideas. I'll have them checked out. Once I find the culprit I'll report back.

 

With everything going on I only got to my mechanic last week to pursue the problem. We took a ride and, based on the fact that the sound could only be heard between 43 and 50 MPH, he determined that a piece of the honeycomb in the catalytic converter was loose or broken and the exhaust pressure in that speed range was causing movement and the scraping sound. The solution was actually very simple and cost nothing. He used a self tapping screw and made some creases in the CC to hold the piece in place and no more noise!