Grind on the passenger at start

I told my friend about this great site and the help you all give. He has a question about his 2001 Honda 2 dr. Accord, V6. After he first starts the car and backs straight or turns, there is a bad sound near the passenger front side, maybe in near the wheel. Once the car has been started, say, and he goes forward and then backs up there is no noise. But the first time out of the parked position, it is very noticeable. He said he has noticed it almost a year. Is the transaxle a problem? Is it dangerous…this aaaaaaaaaaagghhhhhh only on the first startup and back up and it ends shortly, but sounds bad. It is not with brake application either, so not a brake pad I don’t think and he has those checked and replaced, so don’t know what to think. Thanks for any help.

First, keep in mind that the best we have is “grind” and “aaaaaaaaaaagghhhhhh” as a description so I actually have no idea what kind of noise you’re talking about. But one thing that often makes noise only at the very beginning after starting up a car is the brakes. The rotors & drums easily build up rust in a very short period of time and you get noise as the rust is ground off. The fact that putting on the brakes doesn’t cause the noise doesn’t tell you much. Some brake noises will actually go away when you stop on the brakes.

But you should really shut tell your friend to take the car to a good, local front end/alignment shop and ask them to look it over.

Yhanks a lot. I saw on this site about a Ford that could have a noise from an ABS self-test too. My friend recently had the brakes done but forgot to mention the noise. What got me is why it only does it on the start up as if he has turned on the car, it makes the noise when he backs up, but if he pulls forward right away again (ie car is already on) and then backs up it will not grind. It sounded to me like a bad brake or maybe Ujoint, but it only grinds on the first backup after turning on whether or not I think he depresses brake. But he only noticed it the last year. Last summer after being on gravel, we heard a little noise for a short time on that side, but only about 4 min or so. That was the end of that. Thanks, will tell him what you said:)