Blown strut?
 

Hey everyone, it's me again delivering some more bad news as always. I swear within the last two months my car has given me nothing but constant grief, and I'm gettin sick of it.

Anyway, I went on a nice 300 mile trip today, and when I came back I went in for an oil change, since I was about 1000 miles over. Everything was fine up until this point, but after I pulled out of Smitty's, I started hearing a terrible grinding/clunking noise coming from the front left side. It only happens when I turn left or hit a dip in the road, so my guess would be a blown strut as nothing else seems to make sense. I will mention that I have Skunk2 coilovers on stock struts, which may have finally taken its' toll but my car only has 18000 miles, and the coils haven't even been on for 10000.

Before you guys jump to conclusions about the guy who did my oil change, I'll just clear that out of the way, cuz there's absolutely nothing he could've done. He's a pretty good buddy of mine and I was there talking to him the whole time while he was doing it, so I know that he didn't do anything. This is just so freaking irritating, right after I fix one thing something else just HAS to break. Anyway, like I said the noise starts out as a little creak as you turn slowly, but then turns into a pretty loud clunk and kinda even seems to be grinding somewhere. Could it be just the bearing inside the strut got worn or is there something else inside it that could be causing this?

Any input on what this problem might be and the best way to go about fixing it would mean a lot at this point, as I really really want to get this taken care of ASAP!!!

Could be the bearing, or your spring may have came out of where you had it set in. Could be sitting in there crooked. Jack it up and have a look see.

A blown strut puts oil on the wheel, strut etc.

Not likely, not impossible. Jack and find out for sure. Then take it to a front/end alignment shop for inspection if you find nothing obvious.

So if it turns out to be something like a bearing that's simply a strut component, can you buy JUST that piece by itself? I really don't have the money to buy a whole new strut, and if I had to I'd probably settle for some Tokico's while I'm at it. But I'd much rather just invest minimal amounts of money to just get this nuisance out of the way.

The bearing is not part of the strut assembly, he is referring to the wheel bearing....You really need to get in there and look....I doubt it's a wheel bearing if you only hear the noise while turning or hitting a dip in the road...Coilovers on stock struts to me spells blown strut...Ever check the spring rates on coilovers ?? They are prety darn high, too high for a stock strut to dampen effectively. Other possibility is likeqwksilver said, the spring may have come out of it's seat. My bet is either the strut or even possibly the CV joint going bad....

Mac I wasnt talking about the wheel bearing, there is a bearing in the upper spring seat, where in mounts to the inner fender. And yes you can buy the bearing alone.

Here's something else for you guys to ponder upon. In order to attempt to fix this problem, I went and bought some lithium grease spray, just to give it a shot and see if it'll do anything. I've had to use it in the past during the winter because my struts were creaking and it was a nuisance, and the lithium grease made that go away.

However this time I could've sworn there was something bigger happening, because the sound was just horrible, I expected my strut to come shooting through my hood any second from the sound of it. Funny thing is though, after spraying some lithium grease down into both the struts and moving around the steering back and forth while doing it, it made the sound go away.

My friend's dad is a pretty good mechanic and I asked him for an opinion, and he said it was the bearing inside the strut too (which is how I found out there was a bearing inside the strut to begin with), but I guess it was simply dried out and something must've been rubbin together making all sorts of nasty noises. It doesn't make sense to me that all that noise was only due a lack of lubricant though ...

What do you guys say?

EDIT: After posting this, I looked on eBay just in case I need to replace some parts and does anyone else thing this is a fairly good deal? Free shipping too ...

The way you describe the noise, it SOUNDS like a cv joint problem.

Hmmm ... ok I'll look into it. It can't hurt to check right?

BTW: This is the link I talked about in the EDIT on my last post. I forgot to copy the link ... http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...spagename=WDVW