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my car is a 1993 ss ej22t w/ 100,000 km 4eat

SOMETIMES, only sometimes while driving the car it will all of a sudden start knocking, it feels like something in the steering and i can kinda feel it in the floor, the steering wheel will act as if i were braking on warped rotors, it seems to be consistent with wheel speed and i have no idea as to what it is
i was thinking piston sticking on rotor but i have no clue... the problem comes and goes while driving and i also hear a squeal from the front right wheel that comes and goes and will go away when i brake or turn??? any ideas

also the other day after the car sat for 3-4 hrs i tried to start it and had a tough time... i had to hit the gas to get it goin and then it ran like shit like it was on 2 cylinders, so i turned it off and tried again a few minutes later, same thing, so i drove it home a short ways and it was powerless and made a few metal on metal noises as well as the power light come on when i gave it a little gas, i got it home and tried a few things and nothing, i let it sit for 20 minutes and tried again and all of a sudden it ran like magic and has been fine for 2 days now????

notes...
a/c delete last week
brakes are 3 months old, rotors turned
k&n desnork and coffee cup last month
i hit a curb on the right hand side both wheels at the same time, didnt even really leave a mark on the front, broke the rim and bent knuckle on rear

thanks for any help u can give

If the knocking is coming from the front, it might be a CV axle as my brothers car had that knocking sound (more so when the car was turning a certain direction) that was due the CV boot being completely gone. I could be wrong though as I don't know a lot about cars, just what I have done on my car and whatever has happened to my brothers car.

i know of cvs doing that but off and on and while driving straight???

Yup my car is doing this currently.

Check the balljoints.

what is the best way to check the ball joints??


ericem...does it come and go when your driving straight???

put the car in the air and pry between the top of the control arm and the bottom of the knuckle with a big prybar. If you can feel or see any seperation, your balljoint is bad.

You don't even that if they're making that much noise, you can just jack up the wheel and push and pull it at the top and bottom. Any movement is bad. While you're there, check the tie rods - same method, but push and pull the sides. Any free play is bad. If you feel any, see where it is - by the wheel is outer tie rod, from the rack is inner. It's important to rule them out since they can be dangerous if they let go, even if they usually give plenty of warning.

I also wonder if it could be a broken strut. They sometimes break up by the upper mount and you can't see it. If you turn the mounting nut and it free-rotates easily, that's your issue. You may also need to replace the upper mount if this is the case since the broken rod beats the bag out of it from underneath.

RJ93SS wrote:i know of cvs doing that but off and on and while driving straight???

I think it was doing it generally when he was turning. Not so much while going straight.

thanks for all your comments

i figured it out, it is a bad piston in the calipre, that's mainly what i was thinking but i took it to my mechanic to make sure...

i should have figured it out myself

ways we tested and hints to what it was....
far more brake dust on right front rim,
calipre was considerbly hotter than left,
when jacked up in nuetral and drive the wheel would not spin freely like the left one did,
we tested by taking off the brake to see if it would spin freely and it did,
pushing the 2 pistons back in... one went in with ease one did not.



i also found out my fl tierod is slighty worn, now i know what that freeplay feels like.

so now i think i will swap for wrx calipre's after i read a thread about it,
thanks for your help, hopefully this helps anybody that's having this problem

Cool that you figured it out...

My car is making a really friggin annoying sound right now...

When driving in a straight line, turning or anything above 25mph I get a nice "wa wa wa wa wa wa wa" sound that is not quite a clunk but very annoying and it doesnt sound good.

I checked the axles and they are fine, Dale drove it but couldnt hear it, brakes are fine... Wheel Bearing?

I dont know... its just pissing me off!

if you take it to a shop, they can check your bearing with one of those stethiscope thingys in 2 minutes, so you could probably just givbe em 10 bucks to do it

Heh, my car is now making the noises/movements decribed in the OP, except for the squealing part. I am pretty sure it's coming from the left side though. Visually without jacking my car up, I can't see anything out of place. Except there are some weird lines on my front left brake (any ideas?). I am going to jack it up and to the top/bottom and left right thingy when I have time. Maybe over next weekend.

UPDATE: On my drive home tonight, I noticed the "wobble" again when I was getting close to home. It seemed more pronounced at lower speeds (from like 20 and down) and wasn't as noticeable above 40 (though it was still there). When driving slower and I would let go of the wheel, it would move up and down about an inch and my car would pull quite severely to the left. Help!!

Yet another update: Today, I didn't have the "wobble", but I did notice a nice popping noise while turning and while going straight. I had my dad ride with me for a loop of my road and he confirmed the popping noise coming from the right front of the car. Weird thing is, the handling wasn't sloppy in any way this go around and the car still tracked straight. Something tells me I have multiple issues going on here that may or may not be related.

Just going to bump this for this

Today, when at the park and ride, making a right turn, I heard a nice popping/breaking noise. Didn't check on it until after I got back from school and saw several of these on the ground where I heard the thing break. One small, slow loop in a left hand turn seemed fine enough, but making a small, slow right hand loop really wasn't good. I could hear all sorts of rattling/banging/popping or just general not good noises.

Ideas? After conferring with a mechanic I know, he said it's probably the wheel bearing. I don't have an idea but it's something in that area. I made a visual inspection (without jacking the car off of the ground or putting it on ramps, as I was at the park and ride), and I couldn't see any torn boots or broken stuff. But I did see one of those ball bearing things on the A-arm near where the strut base is.

Once again, CV JOINT!!!

Wheel bearings???? What sort of mechanic is this guy? Amish, perhaps?

Aerotech wrote:Once again, CV JOINT!!!

Wheel bearings???? What sort of mechanic is this guy? Amish, perhaps?

Haha, but no . I was talking with him over the phone and that is what he came up with . But I trust this guy with anything mechanical as he has done work on my car previously.

EDIT: Managed to snap a few pics and this one shows the damage the best. The culprit:

klaxed wrote:

Aerotech wrote:Once again, CV JOINT!!!

Wheel bearings???? What sort of mechanic is this guy? Amish, perhaps?

Haha, but no . I was talking with him over the phone and that is what he came up with . But I trust this guy with anything mechanical as he has done work on my car previously.

EDIT: Managed to snap a few pics and this one shows the damage the best. The culprit:

lol..christ man, did you ever even take a peak under the car? its obvious that boot has been torn for a very long time...I wouldnt drive on that if i were you...replace the whole axle, save you some time. Got mine for $65 from autohausaz.com.

Well, I sort of looked, but not really. And I don't plan on replacing the cv joint. Kind of figured it would be better to replace the whole axle. And since this happened. I haven't driven it anywhere. So as I am typing this, my car is still sitting at the park and ride.

Well my dilema is solved. I had my right front CV axle replaced. Now it's good as new (except for the wheel bearing that I think is going out).