I recently change the shocks/struts and still have a noisy front end. I thought by changing the shock this will solve the problem but that was not the case. My car has 87k and takes a lot of beating from driving in the city. I redid the springs and followed the recommendations posted by “LIME” (thank you all) but the noise is still there. It has a rippling sound effect when driving over local roads and not very noticeable on the highways. I took a ride in other Maxima’s and they did not have this problem. I am considering changing all the bushings on the front end and the front wheel bearings. Any suggestions? Does anyone else have this problem?

 

I think that replacing the bushings in the strut tower assembly(or whatever its called) might help. I did the spiral wrap on my springs and I still get noise. I'm going to try doing it another way, but I am also going to do the upper boot/bearing replacement to be sure.

 

Thanks for your reply.
When I change the Shocks, I replaced the tower mounts and tower bearings. (Save your time) I also did the spiral wrap on the springs. I am sure that is not the problem. I am suspecting, it’s either the bushings on the Stabilizer Bar/ Control Arm but not sure. It could be the wheel bearings. Has anyone heard of wheel bearings causing rippling noises?

 

yeah they will make noise but you can check that by lifting your car with the wheel in place and push and pull on the rim and wheel. the whole car should rock a little. if the wheel wobbles the bearing is shot... also you can feel the rim after a drive, if it is OMG hot... thats an indication of the bearing going...

 

Check your front sway bar end link bushings.

 

you might want to check your cv joints too. just in case

 

my noise doesn't sound like the typical CV crunkle when turning. it's while cruising and I get a vibrating noise.

 

I just replaced my front (upper) strut mounts. These are the rubber parts that mount the top of the strut to the strut tower. The rubber part of my passenger-side mount had COMPLETELY separated from the metal mount housing, causing a nasty clunking noise over wavy pavement. It also caused some odd vagueness in steering response and handling. My mounts had 104K miles on them.

You may be experiencing the same failure. However, I kinda think you would have noticed the problem when you did your struts/springs.

You may also want to check and make sure all the bolts from your front struts are secure. I've gotten a similar clunking sound from the front struts when the upper strut-to-mount nut was loose. Make sure that one and all the others are tight.

 

thats the type of road that gives me a hollow vibrating noise in my car.

 

Thank you for your responses. I believe that I found a solution to the problem. I took the car to a friend's shop and put it on the lift. It took a while but it determined to be bad tire rods. It was very difficult to detect and took a lot of patience. You have to grab on the tire rod and shake it with force. The noise was minuscule that you never believe that was the problem. Well, I ordered the inner and outer tires rods. I “might as well” change the complete assembly to be on the safe. (Both sides inner/outer tire rods) I soon will know.

 

how pricey is it to do that?

 

I also just did the spiral wrap, and was all happy that I finally got around to doing it, but I still get the clunking noise going over big bumps and speed bumps. Overall, the noise is decreased, but I'm thinking that the spiral wrap is too thin to totally isolate the noise..

What kind did you use, I got the 1/2 inch spiral wrap from Radio Shack. I'm thinking I need to get something more heavy duty, or maybe its not my springs.. Oh well, kinda dissapointed after a day of taking apart my front suspension..

 

I used the same, but I think that the tone of clunkiness is going to change when you change suspensions(struts) Perfrormance struts just may make a different noise. Mine is slowly subsiding, it also may just be a break in perios?