Liberty Station Wagon MY00 - Loud clicking when turning

[dylanve]

Hi guys,

I'm quite the amateur when it comes to cars, so I'm hoping that I can find some help here.

About 5 months ago my car started clicking quite loudly, but it only happens when I turn into a car park or my driveway.

It gets much worse the sharper i turn, and I can feel quite a violent clunking when it gets really bad. However, it only happens after I've been driving the car for over 15 minutes. After then, the more I drive it, the worse it gets.

My mechanic seems quite stumped as to what it could be, the front CV joints have just been replaced so it can't be that. He's thinking that is could be a CV joint in the tail shaft (if I remember rightly), does that seem right? I'm worried that I'll pay to get that replaced and it won't be problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[1 Lucky Texan]

5 spd ? or automatic?

 

any way, if you feel any 'jerking'/binding in the car, like it can't idle thru a tight circle on dry pavement without giving it gas, that could be torque bind.

 

If your tires are all; the same brand, the same model and the same wear level, this could be bad news. You may have some bad transmission parts. If a tire is different, that needs to be addressed - they must be the same.

 

occasionally, bad u-joints will cause issues similar to this.

 

more details about the car would help.

 

Is your mechanic experienced with Subarus?

Edited July 2, 2014 by 1 Lucky Texan

[Rooster2]

If recently replaced CV joints (half shafts) were with used rebuilt product, then that could be the problem. Rebuilt CV joints are known to be unreliable. Too often, the rebuilder just cleans the joint, adds new grease, and fastens on a new dust boot. However, if the CV joint itself is worn, then you can get the clicking sound you are experiencing, with worsening problems like you are getting when the joint heats up after driving for a while. I have had rebuilt half shafts cause trouble within a year of installation.

 

Suggest your mechanic put the car up in the air on a lift, then check for front wheel bearing looseness by trying to move the road wheel in/out & left/right  Also, have mechanic check for any front suspension looseness with the tie rods and ball joints.

[dylanve]

Hi, thanks for your responses.

Its a 5 speed manual. All of the tyres are the same, they were replaced about a year ago. It has now done 240,000km.

I'm not sure if he has had a lot of experience with Subaru's or not, he does a fair bit of work on performance vehicles usually. He isn't a Subaru specialist though.

The car still seems to idle around a tight corner ok, but if I was to do it on flat ground, it would feel like i was running over a bunch of tiny speed bumps.

I'm not entirely sure what happened with the CV joints, I thought they were brand new, but I'll clarify that with Him. Although I do know that this issue still remained exactly same after the CV joints were replaced.

Another thing I know is that the gear box sounds noisy, but again, it only starts to sound like that after I've been driving it for a while.

[Rooster2]

Torque bind??

[1 Lucky Texan]

this defintely seems like failure of the Viscous Locking Center Differential's viscous coupling. Every  failure of this part ahs involved the symptoms being worse after the trans is warmed up. The hotter, the worse it is.

 

With the tires being proper size, the only 2 things left would be, a mismatch in final drive ratios (like wrong rear diff or trans swapped) or bad center diff.

 

a used 5 spd swapped in would probably be your best approach. (must be the same FD as stock.)

[dylanve]

Lucky Texan, I think your right. I just googled it, found a great break down of the problem, it sounds like it's definitely that. I'm taking it to the mechanic tomorrow, I'll let you know how I go.

 

Thanks again!

[dylanve]

Repeated post, woops.

Edited July 3, 2014 by dylanve