Well at least he drove it, otherwise he shouldn’t have charged you. What’s probably going to happen is: the noise will continue and you’ll have to give it another shot with someone else.
It just seems like little effort went into it here which pisses me off. Not up for going place to place paying lift fee after lift fee until someone figures this out.
$27 is cheap. He did right. He didn’t find the problem, this may be disappointing, but if he would take more time and go in depth to find a hard to diagnose symptom, he would have to charge you more. If he’s not good enough to diagnose it, at least he knows it and sent you packing with a low bill.
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+1
I don’t know of any successful business people who work w/o being paid, and $27 is definitely a small fee, even if he wasn’t able to diagnose the problem.
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Do work for free while using expensive equipment ? Yes he did something and I am surprised it was only 27.00 .
Let’s not be naive. He pushed a button to lift the car and checked a few bolts. My point is that I don’t think he went above and beyond to try and diagnose the noise and then he tried spinning it on the new brakes that someone else put in over 2 months ago.
Check the trunk. You may have something that is loose back there and is now rattling. If you have a spare tire well in the trunk, check in there too.
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You may be right but the others are also right that mechanics can’t give away their services or they will be out of business quick. $27 is as good as you’ll ever get. Many shops don’t make it. You did learn something - there probably isn’t anything obvious - there wasn’t easy low hanging fruit.
If you are worried there might be something dangerously wrong with your brakes, you might test them by stopping firmly on a deserted open road. Have a light touch on the wheel and check to see the car stops properly and doesn’t pull to one side. However, rear brake action is pretty hard to tell compared to front brakes. Nevertheless, if you detect any shortcoming, you have another reason to take the car back to the mechanic that did your brake job for a check.
I just took the car to my hometown mechanic 25 mins away who did a courtesy check and gave me his thoughts. He too said he sees nothing drastically wrong and checked the shocks/suspension too. He tightened a couple of bolts and sent me on my way. Noise still there. The clunk/rattle is actually not as subtle as I thought. Went over a few pretty bumpy patches on the way home and it was was quite prevelant. Definitely not a pleasant noise to hear anytime you drive the car over an imperfection/sewer cap, etc. Really is crazy how hard it might be to find out where it’s coming from especially when its been narrowed down to almost the exact area.
@jtsanders Thanks for the thought but I actually did that last night. The spare, jack, etc are all secure. It’s absolutely something connected to the wheel. I’ve done test after tests over bumps and potholes and it makes the same noise everytime that back driver side wheel hits, though I haven’t ruled out it possibly being something from the back area in general that gets triggered when the back wheels hit.
My last hope might be Honda though who knows if they would even be able to do or find anything different.
maybe your exhaust is hitting something. when the car is cold take a hold of your tail pipe and shake it around and see if it is hitting anything. I have had that problem where the tailpipe was moving just enough to give a little clunk.
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@weekend-warrior It’s a possibility, though I don’t know how the exhaust would have been somehow effected by a hard brake. I will check it out myself. Thanks.
The sound to my ear at least, does not sound like metal hitting metal at all. Best way to describe it is like a big marble moving around inside of a wooden box.
well, I have had that problem too. I lent my vehicle to my son for a couple of days. when I got it back every time I would come to a stop I would get that sound. it was driving me nuts. turned out to be something he put in the plastic pocket in the back door. I did not bother to look there because I did not think he would use the back area of the vehicle.
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Drive over the same bumps while lightly applying the brake, if the noise is gone it is a brake pad rattling.
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@Nevada_545 I did this with light brakes and even hard. Sound is still there. I crawled under the car and checked out everything I could for myself to see if anything was loose. Nothing. For the life of me I can’t figure out what this is, though I will say when I played around with the plastic spring looking part of the shocks, it made somewhat of a similar sound, but I can’t be sure. Unless somehow the tire is hitting it while driving over bumps??
A new discovery (if its important) is that the sound can only be heard when inside the car. When I stuck my head out the window when going over a bump to try and hear it then, I could not, or at least it’s not loud enough to hear in that scenario as opposed to inside the car with the windows up and no exterior sounds at all to interfere.
Have you checked the trunk and the spare tire well? I have had many a mystery clunk turn out to be a loose metal object in the trunk or spare tire well.
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Yes that was the first thing I looked at in the trunk. Its very secure.
It was worth a shot! I hope you find your annoying clunk. I have suffered the indignity of a mystery sound that has sometimes taken years to figure out.
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Hmm, wife went to four doctors before getting the correct diagnosis, the first three all charge for the visits.
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Still have nothing here. Any other advice would be great. The noise is a very light and stuble clunk/rattle that only is heard when the rear wheels hit bumps/cracks/sewer caps at low speeds, specifically the drivers side wheel (95% sure its just that wheel).
Car was checked by two mechanics now and both said everything looks secure and tight. I’ve checked everything from parts of the trunk that might be loose all the way to the gas cap. For the life of me I can’t figure out what this is but I am 99% certain it’s coming from the wheel or something connected to it. It is heard whether I am braking or not. The plastic spring looking part of the strut is loose but I believe those are supposed to be like that.
check the nuts on the bolts on the top of the strut. maybe they are a little loose.