I have an '07 G35S sedan (V36). It has a clunk coming from somewhere up front... the usual complaint when going over sharp speed bumps, road imperfections, etc. I just replaced both lower control arms with Beck/Arnley (one had a mm or so of up/down movement, one seemed fine), and in the past year, it has had new Moog sway bar end links all around (recently greased), new Moog front sway bar bushings, and Moog front strut mounts. The shocks/struts were replaced with used 15-20k mile OEM stuff about 10k miles ago. Original 129k mile springs and isolators. After replacing the control arms and torquing everything correctly, it still makes the noise. If anything, it's worse now. I double-checked that things torqued to spec, and they are.

I've read about the pads and/or caliper causing similar issues. How do you test for that? Also, what is the acceptable amount of play in a tie rod/steering rack? One side has zero play, and the other has a barely perceptible amount of left/right play if I really shake it, but it's there. Is there an easy way to test if that's the inner or outer tie rod? I don't want to continue down the road of throwing money at this. Thanks.

 

Upper control arms would be the next likely culprit. If you have 100k+ miles on any of those components you aren't really "throwing money at this" since they're all worn and need probably need replacing, preventative maintenance.

 

There are dozens of bushing under our frontend that will make similar noises, you need to get your G on a rack and check everything out! Or take her to a alignment/brake shop for a complete checkout! Oh, brakes (rotors/calipers) won't make noise going over speed bumps what they're connected to will!
Gary

 

Yeah, I understand that it's old and parts wear out. I'm just trying to justify putting more money into a 12-year-old car with 130k miles.

I had it at the dealer for an alignment yesterday. As expected, it was a fair bit out after I replaced the control arms. I also asked them to take a look at the tie rods, and they said it all felt good. No other issues noted either. After that, the clunk *may* be gone, or at least it hasn't had a chance to occur yet.

 

How old are your compression rods? I have a very noticeable clunk under even light braking, and going over bumps sounds like my suspension is about to fall apart. When the car's up in the air, there's zero play from any of the suspension components, but I know it's a compression rod ball joint only because literally every other part is new and last time I had it all apart I could tell it didn't have much life left in it... been driving on it for over a year now and finally have a $50 Mevotech Supreme aftermarket part sitting next to me ready to go in tonight.

The compression rod in question has 131k miles, its counterpart on the passenger side died over 20k miles ago.

After spending $500 on suspension parts, you have a 12 year old car which will handle and ride better than a brand new one, and at 130k miles there's plenty of life left in the VQ... If it's got some cosmetic problems just means you don't need to worry as much

 

Thanks for the reply. I could be mixing up my terminology, but isn't the compression rod a V35-specific part? Either way, the alignment seems to have fixed it. Maybe something was loose that I didn't catch... the tie rod no longer has any play, so perhaps it quite snugged down enough. Like you say, the car can likely go quite a while longer. No significant cosmetic problems, and the dealer just gave it a clean bill of health. But of course, now I'm considering selling it for something a little bigger. Heh.

 

^^^ You're absolutely correct, I didn't see you had a V36.