Being the **** person that I am about my car I notice everything. Today I noticed when coming to a stop there is one distinctive "pop" that comes from what sounds like under the right front side of the car. It didn't occur everytime but often enough to make me concerned. I have never noticed this before and just got my car back from the sstealership a couple of days ago for a cracked pan (around the oil pressure switch) which was replaced under warranty. I really don't think this has anything to do with the problem but thought I would mention it. It was wet today so that may be another factor, don't really have a clue. I had the car jacked up yesterday (to check the work) so I thought that the springs might be settling (I have heard a simlar noise after the car had been jacked up and let back down) but this is a single pop, when the springs would pop after being jacked up it would usually be with in an hour of it being raised and occurs only when coming to a stop. This has occured with the wheels straight.

Any ideas? I am going out with a flash light and a test drive. Please post some thoughts or questions here.

 

OK a couple of things that I found out on my outing. It is not the car shifting into first. I had thought that it might be the transmission down shifting while slowing down but I have ruled that out because I put the car in first and while slowing down it would still click. Most importantly I found that this occurs at about 10mph. While slowing down (with brakes applied) the popping sound would occur at about 10mph.

Some other things, I couldn't get it to make the noise when only going from up to 20mph, then to a stop. It seems that it only occured if I would get the car up to a significant speed (I was on a road where my speed would average 45-50.) I also didn't notice it making the noise while slowing down and not braking, however ON BOTH POINTS, the sound is totally random. Some times it will occur two times in a row (two stops in a row) and others it won't occur for three stops in a row. The braking that I applied was steady and smooth, not harsh.

This is a 96 GXE auto without ABS. Anyone have any ideas? The car runs, brakes, and shifts seemingly perfectly.

What happens at 10mph, does the auto shift to nuetral or does that happen when you apply the brakes? Could it be somthing with the brakes, are they electronically controlled and somthing happens at around 10mph?

I am going to check my Hanes manual and if I find anything I will post it here. All thoughts are appreciated.

 

yeah i figured mine out.. i had a loose nut on my front strut bar. so bar would move and pop a lil bt at certain speeds and over bumps ..

 

Bump

I have not noticed mine popping over bumps but I will check the nuts on the front right struts. This really doesn't sound like the area that it is coming from but I will check the torque of the bolts.

Thanks for the replies, please everyone keep them coming.

 

My car made strange noises once when I would come to a stop...

Had several loose lugnuts.

 

Thanks for the replies!!!

As you can see I bumped an old thread in the 4th gen section that described my problem. So far I have had little response from those people (that was back in 2001, surely some of them had found somthing )

Anyway after some more testing (on the way to work) I found that the sound definatly does not occur over bumps, and did not notice it while turning.

Keep the ideas coming. Thanks Eric for the reply, I will check the torque on the wheels as well as the strut when I get home.