Very slight. Always thought it was just an unbalanced tire and yet every time I got new tires or rotated them it was still there.

Towards the end, it was a dull clunk, especially when I went from forward to reverse. I went under the car and discovered my inner transverse links were gone, so I chalked the noise up to them and bought parts to repair.

A couple days before it failed completely, I would get a clunk if I cut the wheel hard and reversed...thought it was a CV axle.

Then it finally failed...literally at cruise on the highway at 80MPH. Never found the actual universal "cross", and it was a packed highway so I hope it didn't hit anyone. WHen it failed, I had a bad vibration for a split second before it went "BOOM" and the pass side floor started banging. I actually drove the car 5-6 miles or so to get off the highway and into a parking lot. Anything over 35MPH sounded bad....real bad.

You don't have to worry about the car pole-vaulting. The shaft has enough stuff in the way, but it did some damage on it's way out. Would leak differential fluid from somewhere just sitting. I assume the unbalance before it failed cracked the diff case. Since that required a engine pull to replace, I sold it to a guy for $1K who intended to fix it. Unsure if he actually did. I should have a friend run the VIN.

Oh it was also Friday the 13th, and I was just starting a 80-mile round-trip journey.

I had months of warning, and put a lot of miles on the car thinking it was just busted transverse inner bushings. I just misdiagnosed it because I never saw this failure before at all on the forums. Seems like now it's becoming more common, so I would suggest all AWD guys get under the car and start inspecting them when you change your oil.




I actually drive a new Ford Taurus Limited now. Regret not getting the SHO, but it's a nice car, I like it a lot. I still want a Q50 though.....one day

 

 

Thanks to that post. I was having vibrations on highway and metal clicking sounds at very low speed. Inspected front shaft of my 06 G35x and.... it would not have held for long... U-joint was almost completely destroyed!

 

I'm looking for insight from those that have had their G35x front drive shafts replaced due to failing/failed U-joints.

I just did a spring tune up on my car and have been driving it for a few days on my new summer tires. I've been flooring and abusing the car more than I ever do but it drives like a dream. When driving about 40 mph I started to hear irregular clunking and metal on metal noise in the front right corner of the car (my girlfriend said it sounded and felt like the noise was coming from directly under her passenger seat, almost like something was hitting the frame of the car).

I suspect it is my drive shaft. I have replaced 100% of the front suspension and there are zero vibrations at any speed. Just this recent clunking noise which seems to be random... as soon as I heard it I turned around and started driving home. It would do it 10 times a minute or it would not make the noise for a few minutes, and I didn't find it made it worse when turning. I have never had a symptom of a bad U joint in the past, this would be the first.

I will go take a video of the noise and also when I am under the car to get a better visual but in the meantime, I wanted to get the conversation started. I did notice that with the front end jacked up, I was spinning the front wheel and the drive shaft made a lot of noise in the transfer case as it rotated back and forth. Really didn't seem to be much play in the U joint though.

 

Don't start with a video, start by getting the car up on jackstands, get under the car, pull up/down/left/right on the front driveshaft and see if there is any play.

A video probably isn't going to help troubleshoot this issue.

 

I meant a video of me pushing and pulling around on the driveshaft, not a video from outside the car.

I’m under the car as we speak. There seems to be the smallest amount of play in the front u joint in one axial direction only, but I’m not sure if the rest of the assembly is moving with it. I also am not convinced the noise we are hearing/feeling is from this amount of play in a u joint.

 

I would suspect brakes or wheel bearings, especially if it seems to be rhythmic with the tires rotating. Spin them by hand and see if you can reproduce the sound. Also possible that something is dying in the transfer case?? I think those front driveshafts are a split shaft, make sure to check for play right where the two pieces of the driveshaft mate together, there is usually a grease sert where you can pump in a bunch of grease and I know those joints do tend to get violent and noisy when they are dry.