Front End Rattle

[Red2LT 1]

Hello;

 

Recently purchased a 2013 Spark 2LT with 50,000 Miles. It has a very obvious rattle coming from the front end when driving.

I have only drove the car about one mile.  I had it delivered from a dealer, and the guy could not back his truck near my house so I had to go meet him.

I was going like 20mph tops in that one mile but it just rattled the whole way.  It did drive very straight, and the steering wheel is also right in the middle. 

I could not feel the rattle in the steering wheel.

 

The car looks amazingly clean inside, under the hood, and all around. 

It has new brakes on the front.  Pads, rotors, and calipers.  So new that the pads were not even broken in when I drove it. 

I read something about the caliper pins causing noise, but the calipers look brand new so I suspect someone bought some reman ones.

 

I did look at the stabilizer links and they don't appear to be broken.  The rubber boots on them are intact, but it is possible they are bad. 

Nothing on the car underneath is out of place, broken, hanging down or anything it looks like a new car under there.

 

I am leaning towards the struts being busted as that was my first thought when the car started moving, but with only 50,000 miles and to be in such bad shape is hard for me to believe.

I did unscrew the black cap on top of the struts and nothing looks like it has been messed with; there is not even any rust in there.

 

I was wondering if there is a common issue on these cars I should be looking at maybe a motor mount that fails early or something?

 

 

[Ray Dockrey 97]

I know the swaybar endlinks being bad can cause all kinds of noise. If you have an independent shop that you use you could take it there and have them evaluate it. Other then that you might just have to out it on jackstands in the front, take the wheels off, and start seeing if you can find whats loose. I know when my swaybar endlinks went on my GM SUV they looked fine but they were so loose it wasn't even funny. You could press up on the swaybar and see just how loose they were. It could be a bad strut but I would look for something simple first. If they did a poor job on the brakes it could be a pad rattling or something like that. 

[Red2LT 1]

I can push up and down on the car with ease under the hood, and the struts are worn out.

 

When I push very hard I can hear it clicking right where each strut is at.

 

I am not going to change them.  I will find a local shop to do it.  If they are not much then I will have them replace the stabilizer links too, and do an alignment.

If tie rods or ball joints are bad they will find that when doing the struts.

 

Probably try to find some quick struts with everything ready to go.

[jesselyons2002 2]

i don't think shops check other parts if your coming in and asking to change the struts. If you ask them to look over the suspension to see if anything else is bad. They might do it for free or charge you. Also I seen some cars with 26,000 miles with a blown leaking shock and I think monroe suggest to replace shock's/ struts at 50k

[Red2LT 1]

Got the Front struts replace, along with new strut mounts, and sway bar links.  Rattle is gone from the front.

Mechanic said the struts were shot, and would not stand up on their own when off the car.

 

The rattle now comes from the rear.  Same problem.  Shocks are bad.  Will replace the shock mounts as well.

I couldn't hear this problem since the front was so noisy.  It is not near as bad as the front but it is still annoying.

[Red2LT 1]

I had to replace both front struts, and rear shocks twice.  But they have been good now for over a year.

 

Do not use anything but the ac delco stock front strut mounts.  I put some aftermarket ones on there from rock auto and they broke.

I did reuse my factory strut mounts they were not bad.  The AC delco ones are very strong and should be the only ones used for this car.

 

For the rear my shocks were missing the rubber urethane I don't know what you call them the bellows perhaps that assemble the shocks together.

I ordered and basically built the entire shock assembly with all new items.  I did use aftermarket and once they were assembled together I have not had any other problems with the suspension on this car.