Any ideas on what this noise might be please? Vauxhall Corsa

Any ideas on what this noise might be please? Vauxhall Corsa

Author
Discussion

Clintpistol17

Original Poster:

6 posts

65 months

Wednesday 24th April
quotequote all
Hi

My car has been making a strange noise for some time… It tends to happen more on country roads. But then again, I don’t do many miles and most of what I do do is on country roads.

It sounds like it’s coming from behind the front foot-wells, or perhaps a bit higher than that. Really tough to tell. And also tough to tell what side it is on. Sorry to be so vague!

I took it to a couple of garages, both of who put it on the ramp and couldn’t see anything. But they didn’t hear the noise because one didn’t want to drive the car out to have a listen, and the other garage wasn’t near any country roads and it therefore didn’t happen for them. One of the garages said they didn’t think it was suspension related.

Here’s a link to a recording of the sound. It’s more prominent around the middle and in the second half. It’s really tough to describe, so hopefully the recording will be enough, but happy to try to describe it if it would be helpful., or take more recordings. Or for that matter, to answer any other questions to help identify.

Would hugely appreciate any ideas. I need to make a long journey in a few weeks time but am reluctant to take it on the motorway until I know what the problem is.

Cheers

Audio:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Uuzpt2DeCm62APx00...


LennyM1984

640 posts

69 months

Wednesday 24th April
quotequote all
I'm going to go with... Drop links.

It'll be something suspension related but that sounds quite like knackered drop links to me. The garage should have been able to spot some play in them by moving them about a bit with a bar but it can sometimes be a bit hard to tell when they are on the car and under load.

I don't know what the suspension setup is like on a Corsa but try feeling for play in the different suspension arms.

Edited by LennyM1984 on Wednesday 24th April 10:41

tux850

1,735 posts

90 months

Saturday 27th April
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It doss have a metal-on-metal sound to it characteristic of ball joint failure so, yeah, I'd go for either drop links or the ball joint on wishbone.

What car is it?

E-bmw

9,240 posts

153 months

Saturday 27th April
quotequote all
90% plus likely to be suspension related, could be many things but my (s)hit list would be one of:

Drop links
Ball joint
Track rod end
Top mount
Engine/gearbox mount
Generically something loose, possibly calliper/subframe

ETA.

Don't take it back to either of those garages as they should have been able to find that, test drive or not.

trickywoo

11,838 posts

231 months

Saturday 27th April
quotequote all
If it isn’t the obvious suspension stuff it could be brake related.

I had something similar on a new to me car which had badly corroded inner disc faces. What you could see looked fine but it resulted in uneven pad wear and the pads were rattling around in certain circumstances. Sounded very similar to worn drop links.