Is this just a “floating suspension”?
Differences like that, right vs left, certainly seems like there is something wrong. Ask your shop what they think, show them what you just did, you may have a broken strut.
Pictures would be helpful
From what I can researched, this is called a free floating strut. When the car has no load on the struts, there is verticle play at the top. The rubber bearing plate insulator moves up and down inside the strut mount. The driver side is not moving because there is a suction effect, so they won’t always drop down when the car is lifted. This is just what I’ve found from researched. I hoped I had found the culprit, and was disappointed that it wasn’t what I had found.
I think I am going to have to bring this to a shop. I messed around with the car yesterday and what I found was the following:
I did the 1 front wheel down 1 wheel up test while putting car in drive. I was able to recreate the same RPM dependent rubbing sound on BOTH SIDES. I traced the sound to the CV axels. When I have my hands on them with the car in drive, I can feel the vibration. There boots are in good shape. When I have one tire on the ground with the other side up and in drive, the stationary cv joint on the opposite side has a wobble to it where it connects to the transmission case. Is this normal? I am not sure where to go from here. It seems unlikely both CV axels would go bad at the same time.
Something interesting - when I put a donut on the front left tire, the vibration goes away. However, whenever I put a full sized tire on it - and I have 3 spares - the exact vibration occurs with all 3.
No, this wobble is not normal. It sounds like your inner CV joint is shot. You’re doing the right thing by bringing it to a shop.
I can do the CV joints myself. It is the diagnosis I am not experienced in. What I am describing is with one wheel off, one on and the car in drive - the stationary cv joint on the opposite side (the one with the wheel down) wobbles as the other cv joint rotates. It wobbles where it connects to the transmission. If I put that side up and the other side down, put car in drive - the same thing happens to the other one. It’s like something inside the transmission is off axis here. I have done all suspension pieces before up to this point. When rotating, the axels themselves do not look wobbly. However, there is pretty bad vibration in both of them.
If the problem is where they connect to the transmission, could this be bad differential bearings? The noise I am hearing isn’t coming from the transmission. Both cv axels making an intermittent rubbing sound that is RPM dependent near the connection to the knuckle.
Could this be one bad inner cv axel causing the other to vibrate? The chances of both being bad at the same time with no torn boots seem remote to me.