My girl friend drives a 2000 Ford Focus manual 5 speed but she is hearing a rattle after she lets off the accelerator even in neutral with the parking brake on any ideas?
Sometimes a rusted or loose exhaust heat shield will cause that.
hmm, ok now that ive driven the vehicle it happens while taking off coasting and in 3rd but not the rest of the time checked the heat shield and its secure im going to put it on a rack tomorrow
I’d crawl under and give the exhaust a good hard shake…right, left, up and down. Sometime you can recreate the noise that way. It may have a broken exhaust hanger, that allows the exhaust to vibrate and rub on the frame or another part under the car.
Don’t worry about breaking anything. If the shaking does crack a pipe or joint…it had little life left anyway.
Yosemite
Sorry for possible bad news but if it is in one gear it could be a countershaft bearing.
When you let off the accelerator, there’s an inertial force that tends to twist the engine in one direction. When you push on the accelerator, same thing, but the twisting force occurs in the other direction. Any engine twisting is resisted by the engine being mounted to the chassis, but the mounting method always allows a little movement. So I expect it is something associated with the engine twisting. There must be some metal to metal contact somewhere in one twist direction but not the other. There’s other possibilities, but that’s where I"d start. Ask your mechanic to look with a flashlight while a helper is bumping the revs up and down. As mentioned above, good chance this has something to do with the exhaust system.