My 08 LT 2.2 has developed a funny front end clunking sound. Its more pronounced in the cold. I can make it happen by pushing up on a side door and rocking the vehicle. I can't find anything loose or dangling thats hitting anything.

I'm thinking its suspension related, but a shop put it on a hoist and said everything was tight and the suspension was fine. They pushed and pulled on the exhaust and pretty much everything else, but nothing was loose. Anyone have any ideas?

Krusty.

 

I had this too. Check the bracket on the back of the air box. See if that is loose. Reach your hand back behind it.

 

Air box? Are you referring to the air cleaner assembly?

 

Yeah Krusty, Kev is talking about the air cleaner assembly. He had a bracket break on his and apparently they can really make a racket banging around under the hood. I'm sure Kev will fill you in on the details, think he found a replacement part on ebay.

 

I have read several threads about thunks and clunks and have not had any problems with my HHR until was up in some cold climate. When the temperatures were in the 20s & 30s, my HHR started clunking front and back. ??? There were lots of potholes to shake things up. Once I got into warmer temperature 50s, the clunking went away. I was going to climb under to check things out, and still may do that when I get motivated now that I'm back in Florida. But the temps in the low 90s for a while.. My HHR hit 80K miles on my trip. I did clean 3000 miles of winter road dirt today.

 

Many times the cold weather front end clunk is from the sway bar bushings (not end links, although they go bad also) Bushings may not show up in an under the car "shake and jiggle" session unless they were totally wasted....... If they were that bad it would be an all year long problem.

If it was the airbox bracket it wouldn't be temperature sensitive either.

 

check sway bar bushings , ball joints , sway bar end links , steering tie rod ends, strut tops. the factory stuff is junk and is toast at 30k could be any of the above depending on what decided to die first.