My 2.2 LT has developed a thumping sound on the front right side. When I am at highway speeds of 55+ mph and turn the wheels to the right around a curve, you can hear a continuous thump sound (like if you had a belt or knot issue in a tire). Doesn't happen when turning left and you can faintly hear it when slowing down with the wheels straight. The noise gets worse the sharper the turn and you can sorta feel it in the steering wheel.

On top of the noise, that front right side feels a little sloppy/loose. The lugs are on tight and I couldn't see anything wrong when I had the tire off. I rotated the tires to be sure it wasn't the tire and the noise continued. I've had my struts and that sides stabilizer bar end link replaced about a year ago. I do notice the stabilizer bar bushings are bad, but don't think that would be the reason to the noise.

Any ideas I may be overlooking?

 

1. You might have a bad outer CV joint, they can fail internally without having the boot torn or leaking.

2. You've got a bad tire, head to a tire store and have them check it on a spin balancer, shifted or broken belts will be quite evident.

3. Most likely, you've got a bad hub, the bearings have/are failing and it will need replaced.

Obviously you need to get this taken care of ASAP, if that corner feels loose you might experience a catastrophic failure leading to a "wheel off". That'll do quite a bit of damage to your vehicle, and possibly cause an accident.

 

As I said in an earlier post, don't discount the control arm bushings. Until you said slowing down causes noise, I was all in on hub or CV.

 

Would the bearings in the hub be making more of a grinding than a thump? I had a bad hub on a different vehicle and it grinded, but I wasn't sure if it could make a thump sound as well.

 

If the bearings have started to disintegrate internally, you can get a thumping/thudding noise as the wheel rotates. My concern is your description of that side feeling sloppy and loose, I'd get it checked out ASAP.

 

Will do. Appreciate the comments/concern.

 

Let us know what is found and how it was addressed, its bad that you're having a problem, but your experience might just help out someone in the future.

 

Sounds like one of the tripod joints in the axle is about to let go. Stop making extreme sharp turns till you get to the shop, or she's gonna pop.

 

Yeah a tripod joint will give you a shudder and plenty of banging about, but his complaint of the corner feeling sloppy and loose still has me thinking hub failure.

 

Well, the old man and I pulled off the right lower control arm and the bushing was in pretty bad shape. Got the part for $14 at O'Reilly's. The fun part was using the bench vise, chisels, hacksaw and hammer to get the old one out and new one in. The worst part was while working to get the control arm back in, I managed to make a sharp movement directly into the floor jack and busted my knee wide open! Blood was running pretty good.

Unfortunately, the thumping is still there when turning right, but it feels much tighter in the front. One thing we noticed was the axle had some up and down play along with the normal in and out play where it goes into the engine...the driver side didn't seem to have that up and down play. Think I should try the hub assembly before an axle?