gciriani

Here we are talking specifically of a shift that happens at each wheel revolution (1 turn), and I'm struggling to understand why it happened in the first place, and why it went away by itself.

I went through your whole thread; thank you for giving me the link. It's very interesting, as I can recognize some of the symptoms I experienced. It's not clear to me why the tie rods would cause the problem. You and those who contributed to your thread had sort of an explanation of why the bearings would cause the problem. But there was no rationale for the tie rods being implicated. On page 9-10 of your thread you are still discussing the cause, and then all of the sudden you decide it's the tie rods. Could you please paraphrase the thought process?

KaraK, Yes, the clunk is gone. I even took a long 900-mile trip, and didn't notice anything like that. Could you please tell me a little more about your type of noise? Was it exactly at the same speed as the wheels? And what was done to the inner tie rods? Were they tightened?

It was not loose. The mechanic said it was not as tight with all the torque it is supposed to have according to the manual. Now, the same mechanic is the one who replaced the brake rotors and pads on both sides, and the axle on the side opposite from the side I'm having the problem with, 3000 miles ago. I don't know if he by mistake touched the bolt on this side.

I was watching him as he was doing it. It was the center bolt, the one for which one has to use an extractor (at least it was a large cylinder he was using).

Update: the mechanic said that last time I took the car there an he put it up on the hoist, he tightened the bolt on the disc. He hypothesized that this might have eliminated whatever source of play was causing the vibration.

GrossGary, I was thinking this over. How would the behavior you are referring to explain the noise I detailed in this post? Specifically a precise location during the rotation of the wheel at 1 mph the clunk would last about 1/10 second then there would be an interval of 1 second (about the time for a a full 360-degree rotation of the tire, and then again, clunk

Grossgary, Thank you again for the suggestion. I'll bring it to the mechanic, and we'll try it.

MarkJW, Did you experience anything as I described during acceleration? With robust acceleration the clunk went away as well?

There is no more noise now, I'm trying to diagnose what could have caused that for 4-5 days and then all of the sudden went away. But yes, applying brake pressure was making the noise go away, and so was constantly accelerating. The noise was at max while going in neutral, or with a very, very slight gas pressure. So it was torque dependent.

The mechanic, and I was there watching it, couldn't hear any noise turning it by hand. But I suspect that at that point the position of the suspension (hanging) made the difference. My further hunch is that spinning the wheels while hanging changed position of whatever it was, that was causing the noise. I'm still hunting for a rational explanation, and try to confirm it with some test, because something definitely was not right. The fact nothing feels wrong right now, only means that that "thing" may be lurking and wait to happen again. The boot I think it has a cut somewhere.

The mechanic replaced both rotors and pads. I probably didn't explain the axle replacement well. Only the right axle assembly was replaced, and it was done at the same time as both brakes (rotors and pads), probably because the bearing or the joint had started to be noisy (I have forgotten the reason, but I trust the mechanic since I have along term relationship, and he often does stuff at no charge). The noise was periodic, like: clunk, clunk, clunk at the same speed as the wheel. It didn't sound like a caliper sliding on a surface. When it happened I could even hear it in the parking lot going 1 mph, standing outside the car and my wife driving in a circle. At that speed it was like: clunk, ... 1 second, clunk, ... 1 second. That is the clunk would last about 1/10 second, then there would be an interval of 1 second, and then again, clunk. So it was definitely in a particular position and it didn't seem caused by something sliding.

Thanks for the reply. I do not understand though why you are suggesting a tire rotation if the problems resides with the brakes or the wheel bearing. The brakes (rotor and pads) where replaced 2-3000 miles ago as was the right-hand-side axle. The left-hand-side axle is still the old one, as it was judged to be still good.

In the past week a noise on the front left wheel side started becoming every day more prominent. It goes at the same frequency as the wheel is rotating. The vibration can be felt on the steering wheel as well. Any suggetsion as to what it could be? The mechanic said it could be the axle CV joint, but probably not the ball bearing; it could even be the transmission in his opinion. The first time it was hoisted, moving the axle by hand didn't show any significant play. So we thought the CV was improbable. He injected some grease in the booth of the axle to see if this was going to change anything, but there was no change. Eventually we decided to try replace the axle, but as he started taking down the wheel and extracting a couple of pins, he became more convinced that the axle was OK, so he recommended that I take the car to the dealer to diagnose if it was indeed the transmission. When I left the mechanic's garage the noise had disappeared, and never came back by the time I reached the dealer. So I didn't go through any diagnostics as it would be wasted money. Any suggestion on what this could be, and what to check? The car is a 2003 Legacy SW with 118,000 miles on it, 2.5 L engine. This actually was the second time the mechanic had put the car on the hoist to check it underneath. He examined treads, brake rotors and axles. What I also asked them to do the second time was to turn on the car while on the hoist, put it in gear and spin all 4 wheels to at least 30 mph. First they spun the incriminated side without the wheel on; then because it was almost not moving (the differential transferring most of the rotation to the other wheel), they mounted the wheel back on and they spun all wheels again. I'm wondering if this has something to do with a problem in the differential that the uneven rotation hid away. I wanted to add further piece of the story which may or may not be related to what's going on right now. About a month ago a grinding noise started on the other side (front right hand side). It was at the same frequency as the wheel, and I thought there was something caught in the brake rotor, but nothing was showing after taking the wheel down. It appeared at the beginning of a 100-mile trip, and the next day was not there anymore. It had the same period as the clunking noise, but just grinding this first time. I could tell that it was metal on metal, and not with a lot of energy dissipated, but it was definitely there. The next day I went to the mechanic, and we couldn't find anything.