# 2002 Ford Focus with knocking under the floorboards

**URL:** <https://community.cartalk.com/t/2002-ford-focus-with-knocking-under-the-floorboards/13736>\
**Category:** Maintenance/Repairs\
**Tags:** noises\
**Created:** [May 7, 2008, 6:30pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2002-ford-focus-with-knocking-under-the-floorboards/13736 "2008-05-07T18:30:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kmcgee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5e9695/32.png) [@kmcgee](https://community.cartalk.com/u/kmcgee)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 6:30pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2002-ford-focus-with-knocking-under-the-floorboards/13736/1 "2008-05-07T18:30:30Z")

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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 🙂

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**Author:** ![shortyoh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@shortyoh](https://community.cartalk.com/u/shortyoh)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 6:53pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2002-ford-focus-with-knocking-under-the-floorboards/13736/2 "2008-05-07T18:53:33Z")

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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.

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**Author:** ![cappy208](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/cappy208/32/31_2.png) [@cappy208](https://community.cartalk.com/u/cappy208)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2002-ford-focus-with-knocking-under-the-floorboards/13736/3 "2008-05-07T20:56:14Z")

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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.