There is a sound coming from my car that started about a week ago. It sounds like metal vibrating against metal. You can hear when you are next to the drivers side of the car, in the car or looking under the drivers side of the car. You can not hear it when looking into the engine compartment which narrows down the location of the noise. It is coming from the drivers side under neath near the tranny. The noise is present from idle to about 2500 rpm, after that I cant hear it. It comes and goes also, sometimes you wont hear for a while and then you can and then it goes away, other times it just wont stop. I have looked and found nothing so far. I have checked the tranny and torque converter to make sure they were tight and not loose, they were tight and that rules out the possibility of those two causing the vibrating sound. I tried to find it while not running, I could try tofind it while it was running but my cr ius to low to crawl under without jack stands and I like my life at this moment so I am not to gungho on crawling under my car while it is running and resting on jack stands, so any advice or suggestions would help



Thanks Drew

 

Do you have catalytic converters? If so, one of them could be bad. They will make a loud clanking noise (especially at idle) when bad.

Hope this helps.

 

I had a car once that made a loud sound like that. It was just the heat shield on the cat vibrating. I think I had a mech twist the shield a little, so it stopped.

 

Yeah well I forgot to mention that. My car has no catalytic converter, it has a "test pipe" to check to see if my car was losing power due to the brand new cat. . So we can rule out the cat. Also i have no heat shiels on the block, they got removed when i pulled the engine two years ago. So any other ideas and scenarios would help. i appreciate the help, sorry about that lack of info.

Thanks again Drew

 

i have the same problem with mine, but i have a t-5. and it's wierd it seems to be more consistant while goin uphill or when your in a higher gear at lower speed. i don't think it's the u-joints, any other ideas?

 

87, I do not think it is the u joints, they were going out on my mom's firebird and they didn't sound the same, granted her bird was a v6 and my maro is a v8. However I still do not think it is the u joints on mine due to the fact that you can hear it clearly on the driver's side but on the passenger side you can barely hear it( from outside the car). And of course we can rule out it being inside the engine just because it is not consistent, it speeds up and becomes louder as I accelerate but once I get near 2500 rpm it just goes away and may car sounds normal, 95% of the time I hear the noise it is when i am speeding up from a dead stop or slowing down then speeding up. It very rarely makes noise as a decrease my speed, and the noise does come and go while my car is warming up in the mornings. If I find anything that could be it I will let you know 87, until then I am still open for suggestions.


Thanks Drew

 

Last night I readjusted my timing.On my way to get gas I noticed that the noise had become quiter and was not happening as much. However i still have not found the source of the noise.


Drew

 

Must be a rash of this going around. A few days ago I started noticing "spark knock" sort of noise from my daily driver Caprice. It usually makes the rattle noise during acceleration, but it sometimes makes the noise at idle, revving high. It comes and goes.