Hey guys,
I recently purchased a 2000 accord ex 4-cyl with 25,000 miles. For the past week, the car has been making a funny clunking noise coming from the bottom center of the engine. It makes the noise when I pick up the driver side fender and push it down. It makes this annoying noise eveytime I drive and go over a bump. I thought it might be my struts so I changed the front struts , but that did not help. If I pick up the passenger side fender and push it down, it does not make any noise, it only happens on the passenger side. The noise sounds like its coming from the bottom center of the engine. I checked both axles for any wear and they seemed fine, I also checked out the lower sway bar bushings and they too seemed fine. Any help would be much apprciated. Thanks in advance.

 

When you pull up on the fender can you feel a vibration in the strut? If not then its probably a motor mount.

 

No,I don't feel a vibration when I raise the fender. I can't see it being a motor mount though because the car has only 25,000 miles. I will definelty check into that though. Thanks

 

Well I had the same noise and replaced the strut and it didnt go away...come to find out I had somehow bought a defective strut by chance to replace the blown one and only found out by being able to feel the clunking at the top of the mount. Now it's back again and I think my tower bushings are bad and creating extra clearance

Be sure to also check sway bar end links for damage.

 

How do you get a 2000 with only 25,000 mi on it?

I don't drive my car in the winter at all anymore and rarely at all in the summers now and I have 64,000mi on my 2000. That sounds like a rare find on mileage to me. That car hasn't even been driven 5000mi per year

 

I drive 35k a year...I'm such a joke :happysad: What's your second car?

 

I had an old 1986 BMW 320i that made a similar noise to the one you describe - fair enough it had about a quarter of a million miles on the clock, but anyway, it turned out that it was the suspension bushes that were gone. Had to replace the whole arms but it curedthe problem. If you jack the car up a bit once side at a time and then skae the wheel that's off the ground to see if there's any play in it. If there's a lot it could point to the problem I suggested. The only thing I could say though, is that it'd be pretty unusual for a car with 25k on the clock to have it's bushes go already..

 

Currently it's a leased 05 Ford Five-hundred, it's a company car required for my job. Not the best car IMO, but any free car w/ free gas is a nice perk. Before that I had a 97 S10 as a winter beater in the rust belt.

 

I had the same problem with my 01 Accord. It turned out to be the sway bar bushings. What happens over time, the sway bar bushings dry out and get hard and need to be greased up. What I did was take the sway bar bushings out, and coat them with a real heavy grease. Since I did this I haven't had any problems with the car. You could also go to the Honda dealer any buy new sway bar bushings.

Jay