Click click click.. click... sound from driver's side wheel well area. (what could it be?)

Maintenance/Repairs
1

2012 Honda Fit. Aftermarket Konig Helium wheels. Bilstein B14 coilovers.

This condition has been present ever since I removed the steel wheels after I bought the car, they were rusted onto the hub, so I loosened the lug nuts, and drove and broke at low speeds-----this broke the rust. This information is not likely relevant.

What do you think the click click click… sound from the wheel well is coming from?

I’ve eliminated the following causes:

  1. rocks in tires
  2. bad CV axle (the CV axles were replaced by Honda as part of a recall, this condition exist before and after the replacement.)
  3. wheel balancing weights sliding against the caliper. NOPE, there are NO balancing weights of any kind at all.
  4. the rotors rubbing against the rotor dust shield. This one I haven’t entirely eliminated entirely as a possibility, but I have pushed the rotor dust shield away from the rotor, it certainly doesn’t appear to be rubbing against anything. I will have to check again.

Could it be the wheel bearings, but bad wheeling bearings generally don’t make this sound.

Here’s what I can do: I can the car on jack stands, and remove the front wheels, turn on the engine, and just observe the hub/rotors spinning… I guess this is next.

Any thoughts?

2

Or, have a shop look at it? On a lift?

1 Like
3

do you have covers on your brake calipers? my friend had this problem on his mustang. one of the caliper brake covers came slight loose. it would just barely it the back of the rim making a clicking sound. it was driving him nuts until I found the problem and fixed it.

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4

I’ve had warped rotors cause this. The rotors moved the pads a bit and they’d click against the caliper, pins, or something. You could only hear it at low speed and this was on a Jeep that never really got above 60 mph. I imagine you’d notice the rotors warped on higher speed braking with your car, though. The Jeep never did any “high speed braking” with me in it and worn out mud tires mask a lot of rotational issues! In my case, the clicking would stop when I mashed the brake pedal at all. So, you could possibly at least rule out brakes and their hardware by noticing if the sound is present or not under braking.

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5

Warped rotors are possibly but I would imagine that warped rotors would be felt at the brake pedal (when braking.) Here there’s no sign of that, but still it’s possible…

6

Correct. I’m just saying if the sound still persists when you mash the brake pedal at all, you can probably rule out anything to do with the brakes (anti rattle pads, clips, etc, rotors, pads).

7

You’re on the right track, chock the car, jack up the wheel, ect but start with the wheel on and maybe even first spinning it by hand.

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8

Along the lines of BC’s suggestion above, I’ve sometimes removed the wheel then figured out a way to set the point of a sharpened pencil very close to the rotor, but not touching, then hand spin the wheel to see if it touches only at certain angles of the full rotation. I’ll do that at several points along the rotor to see if the rotor is moving in and out, then at the top to see if the rotor is moving up and down. Clicking sounds like that are most commonly caused by problematic CV joints, esp if notice more during low speed turns, so even though both axles have been replaced, don’t entirely discount that idea. CV boots can sometimes bunch up and cause weird sounds.