Over the past month I've had this noise developing from the front of my car, it sounds like a loud clicking noise when I turn at a slow speed, like backing out of my driveway or something you can really hear it clicking as I turn the wheel.

It sounds like it's coming from dead center in the front middle when I'm IN the car, but I noticed after pushing the car down on the right side right on top of the wheel (literally just bouncing the car up and down I mean) , it seems to be coming from right there by the wheel somewhere. It doesn't do the same on the left.

And the weird thing is this will get really bad for a few days, like last week, and then I had planned to take it in to my step dads shop on Friday morning, but for some reason as I was backing out of the garage that morning...the noise was completely gone. Now over the weekend it's slowly come back, and it's pretty bad right now again.


Does anyone have any ideas? I don't know if this is an axle problem or maybe the springs/struts? The clicking while turning would suggest axle but..when I'm just pushing down from the top of my car and it's clicking like that it really sounds like it's right there by the wheel.

 

Check the lower ball joint for play. Also check the condition of the strut mount.

 

Will do. Are either of those leaving me at risk of like..breaking going down the road?

 

When my friends ball joint went on his 96' blazer, we started calling it the 'tripod of doom' and just kept driving on it anyway. Which by the way was a stupid idea.

Check your sway bar bushings and end links.

 

Well I got under the car with a light and looked at the right lower ball joint..and it looks like the "boot" around it is all blown off...so that's probably the noise I'm hearing..like metal grinding..