Corolla Suspension Help

Hello everyone,

Taco is fine (*wipe forehead*) but my wife's car has a nasty suspension noise, so I came to the best forum ever to ask for help. Hopefully someone can help because I have inspected absolutely everything!!

It is a straight up "CLUNK" noise from the front driver side area.
No noise when turning the wheel.

I have 2" lowering springs and struts I installed 5+ years ago. IMO the struts look fine, sway bar and control arms look great too. The lower ball joint looks kind of oily, could that be it? Strut mounts look great too. None of my rubber boots on suspension/CV's are ripped. Pushing the front end of the car down doesn't reproduce the noise.

I also revved the engine in FWD +Reverse to check for motor mounts. What do you think?

See pictures + video below. I really appreciate any help you awesome sauce people can provide!

https://youtu.be/tLaEYubPO8M
https://youtu.be/gQ0_t-4dDr4

 

Bump for help

 

Hey Taco Salad. I'd check the spring isolators. I can barely hear it in the video, but does it only occur when you hit a bump? Can't recall if you mentioned worn bushings or not, but check those too. The loose springs will make a clunk similar to that when hitting a solid enough bump, but not when you're turning or driving on a smooth road. The upper shock mount pivot base may have bushings also, usually called a jounce bumper or something like that, make sure they're not deteriorated and crushed.

 

A clunk noise can be lots of things, but the first things i would be looking at is the sway bar bushings, balljoints, and the bushings in the lower control arms. they can seperate and allow the arm to hit the subframe. Also sway bar links, but those normally make more of a rattle type noise, not so much a clunk. How have you checked the front end? you can't just visually look at front-end components. You need to be grabbing hold of stuff and feeling for play. Also helps to use a pry bar on things like balljoints. sometimes sway bar bushings feel ok with the wheels in the air, but when the wheels are on the ground the you can feel some play between the bar and bushing. those can sound much worse than they really are.

 

After replacing the strut mount and checking every single suspension piece to no avail, I bit the bullet (for the first time ever) and took my car to a mechanic... 3.5 hours of them looking at it and apparently my brake caliper bolt had sheared. If you check it with a wrench it seems tight, but it was bouncing all over the place. $47 later and I'm good to go. Thanks for your help!

 

Glad you got it sorted! Thanks for letting us know what you ended up finding, that's a pretty unique failure.