2002 Ford Focus with knocking under the floorboards

I have a 2002 Ford Focus with about 83,000 miles on it. It is a manual transmission and has been with me since it was 15k miles old. Recently, I took the car to Firestone/Bridgestone to have new brakes put on. They ended up putting the front passenger brake on backwards so that a large paper clip looking thing (I, obviously, am not a car expert) kept poking out and hitting the rims. I took it back and they fixed it but now I notice a clunking noise coming from under the floorboard on the passenger side. When I sit in the passenger seat I can actually feel it. It is most prevelant at lower speeds when I am going straight. If you have any insight I would appreciate it! Also, I am about to drive it 450 miles and am hoping the wheel doesn’t fall off, let me know if that is something to be concerned about :slight_smile:

The most common problem with these suspensions would be the swaybar links. Nobody makes good quality links for OEM, in my opinion… but the replacements are not that expensive - some aftermarket for the Focus are as low as $10, but you can get very nice Moog ones for $25ish. When they go bad, you’ll notice it more at low speeds, particularly in situations like moving straight but hitting uneven bumps - speed bumps are perfect to test these out on.

But there are FAR too many things that could be going bad that are serious safety problems - you really should take it into a professional mechanic (not a firestone place) to have it inspected. It could be cheap and not a big deal… but don’t risk it.

ditto on the “firestone place is NOT a professional mechanic” thought.

in all likely hood it is a secondary issue, which you just started to notice since the brake job, but hey… if firestone place missed the caliper backwards, i would not have much faith in them either to figure this out.