What's up guys,

My 2006 G35x has been clunking from the front left area when going over bumps and cracks in the road. My G has about 98k on it, I hear the sound over speed bumps as well. The noise goes away once I brake though, and is loudest with some bigger bumps. I had the front left wheel bearing replaced a few weeks ago as well. Although I did not notice it as much before the bearing replacement, I think I heard it before. The loud busted bearing made hearing noises a lot harder and now the clunk is noticeable to me. On bad roads it's super annoying and I took it to a mechanic who tried a few things.

They initially showed me that my front left lower forward control arm bushing was bad, and it was moving without much force at all. They thought this was the source of the noise so they replaced that control arm. The noise persisted so I brought it back and they found the front left caliper to be loose. They said it was from the bracket/bushings and it was moving around. Unable to find just the bracket, I supplied them with a remanufactured one from rockauto and they replaced it this morning.

The clunking noise is still present and I'm out of ideas and the mechanic is as well. I find it odd that the clunking stops occurring when I'm braking, I was pretty hopeful that the loose caliper was the culprit. They said that everything else looked fine and nothing was loose under there. Does anyone have any ideas? Not sure if the fact that the clunking stops when pressing the brakes rules out additional suspension parts or not. Please let me know what you guys think or have any ideas. The sound is pretty annoying especially on bad and bumpy roads. Now that I dumped money twice into trying to fix it, I want to find the cause of the problem.
Thanks,
Alex

 

Probably not going to like the advice but you should just replace EVERY wearable component on the front, otherwise you're almost literally going to have the car in the shop every year piecing together every one of the front suspension components over the next few years.

Cheaper and easier to just do it all at once, sports car life ftw.

Shocks, wheel bearings, tie rod ends, upper/lower ball joints, compression rods, sway bar end links, everything with a moving part. The front suspension is only good for about 100k miles on a sports car.

 

I had 3 wheel bearings replaced this month along with the front lower forward control arm and a ball joint. I know that it would be best to do it all at once but after spending a lot this month on repairs I am just trying to get to the bottom of this clunking for now. Thank you for the good advice though I will use that in the future if I am able to figure out this noise, it's driving me nuts.

Does the fact that it doesn't clunk when braking narrow it down at all? I was wondering if you had any guesses for where the clunk is coming from. I've read a lot about sway bar end links and the compression rod on that side so I was guessing it had to be one of those two things. The sway bar end links don't look too difficult to replace on my own but that compression arm looks like the worst thing in the suspension. I appreciate the future advice for repairs, however if you know any more information about this clunk I'd greatly appreciate the help. I'm just guessing right now and not sure if these parts typically clunk over big bumps. This has been a busy month for repairs for my car and I'd like to fix this first and be good for a bit.

Thanks for the help as always Cleric, I appreciate it a lot.
Alex

 

It's likely the compression rod, very common failure item associated with that clunking sound.

See if you are able to replicate the sound by opening the door and pushing up on the top of the door support to violently rock the car side to side.

If you can reproduce the sound with the car parked it's MUCH easier to find the problem.

 

That is the link to a video of the clunking coming from the front left area that I took yesterday. You can clearly hear the noise as the road is bumpy and I was going slow. Let me know if you think that sounds like the compression rod or maybe sway bar end links.

I pushed on the car from both sides, under the hood, the door, and tried shaking it hard yesterday. I could not replicate the noise but I just want to narrow down the area due to the sound. I know that it's just a guess from the video, but you are probably more familiar with suspension clunks in Gs. Let me know what you think about that video. Thanks for the help as always Cleric.

 

Hard to tell from the vid. Did it clank before you got the ball joint replaced? How about the wheel bearings?
I would lift the car and torque down all the front suspension bolts to spec, including the top strut bolts. There aren't really that many bolts to check, and of course inspect all bushings while you're there.

Compression rods are not at all difficult to replace, its only a few bolts to get them off. You have to be careful not to damage the underside bolt they are on, if that thing breaks your car is pretty much useless. Use a torque wrench and you will be fine, also tighten them to spec once the car is sitting on the ground (not on the lift).