Saturday, May 9, 2015

There is a chassis groan that my mechanic cannot find


Question:

I have a 2002 Ford focus S/W with 48K miles. There is a chassis groan that my mechanic cannot find. It seems to be coming from the right front. All bushings and fittings are fine. CV joints fine. Struts fine. It seems to be worse when making a slow right turn.


Answer:

If the while driving and you swerve back and forth from right to straight to left to straight and the pitch of the groan noise changes at all, then your front hub bearings are at the beginning stages of failure and should be replaced. I recommend replacing both if needed.(quite common to failure)
If it is more of a clicking noise then it would be the cv-shaft internally.
If it changes when hitting a bump, it would be sway bar bushings, or ball joints.