It's been a while since I was here but I'm Back. Any how my 07 is driving me crazy. It has a rattle in the left hand suspension. I have replaced the struts with KYBs, a stiffer sway bar, both lower A arms and tie rod ends, and the stabilizer bar links and the left drive shaft and associated CV joint. The sound went away for a couple hundred miles and now it's back. I'm thinking about getting rid of the car because of it. I really like the HHR look but.... Would stiffer springs help? It sounds like there is something not tight but everything that moves is tight.

 

When you changed the struts, did you also replace the strut mounts? They can rattle when the bearings dry out.

 

this car is notorious for clunks..but its not that noticeable really..unless you have some odd thing going on..check the mounts as 843 said, did u replace the control arms and bushings with greaseable ones?

 

Check the rear bushing on the lower control arm.....

 

x2 - they make more of a dull thunking sound, rather than a high-pitched rattle, and can be felt thru the floorboards sometimes.

Sway bar mounts (not the links you mentioned) can also wear and get rather noisy with thunks as well

 

No, I didn't know they were replaceable. I'll see if the parts store has em.

 

The lower control arm (some like to call them LCA - ) rear bushing is a bear to re and re - you pretty much need a press, or a huge vice. The LCA's can be purchased from the autoparts stores, complete with the rear bushing, front bushing and lower ball joint all preinstalled - and they are reasonable in cost. Have a read down the HOW-TO section for a writeup on the re and re process for the LCA's.

the bushings alone run $80+ in Canada from the dealers, but in the good ol' US of A, some store prices are $8-$17 if I remember correctly.

the sway bar bushings are also available at most auto parts stores and you can find some info on them by using the SEARCH function. They run about $20US.

hope that helps

 

Replce the strut mounts, the bushings inside them where out they are like $30 bucks each. That shoud be problem solved for sure.B-)

 

Welcome Ben“G””76ers.