My car is a 2000 with 160K on it. It has been lowered for about 2 years now with H&R springs (1.4 inches and 1.3 inches lower front/rear) and Tokico Illuminas. The car started making a sort of a banging noise that has gotten progressively worse over the last several months and only on the right front corner of the car when that tire goes over a bump.

I figured it was the Tokico strut (about 30K on it) since I thought it made the same noise as when the OEM strut failed and had gone bad at about 65K.

Well... it seems i was WRONG. I used Housecor's write up http://www.shiftice.com/strut_install.html (props to him) and followed the steps carefully and when I drove the car I noticed that the "banging" seemed a little less noticeable by about 10-20% and less "clanging" as if it were more controlled; maybe attributable to the newer "tighter" strut.

I have checked the wheel bearings by doing the pull test on the tire and no looseness. Nothing else seems loose on that right side but i did notice a VERY slight looseness on the sway bar end link on the other side (LEFT) of the car.

What else could it be that I should be looking for?

 

If you searched a little more, you'd find that the most likely culprit is the right engine mount. Was on mine.

 

How dare you ask a question about your maxima on a maxima forum without searching for days through the posts!

 

if it were the motor mount SPOCK then when pulling on the accelerator cable with the hood open would the engine not then visibly torque in that direction?

 

hey i'm getting the same noise on my pass side front it sounds like the strut but beleive me it's not
it's your ball joint i went to pepboys got a front end check and my struts (tokiko illumina) are ok jack your car up and shake the wheel left to right and you will hear the noise i decided to change the whole controle arm's though so i'll let you know if the noise stops..............

 

I had a very bad rear motor mount and for some reason a performance shop told me that all my mounts were good after performing a similar test. Apparently they didn't take the car out for a test drive because they would have seen the shifter bouncing around when accelerating.

My advice is to check all motor mounts yourself, top two can be seen from the top of the engine bay. Bottom two can be seen from under the car with a flash light if you look hard enough. I'd recommend unbolting the cross member just to be safe and get a better view.

 

Had the same noise, and my passenger side mount looked fine, but after replacing it the noise is gone.

 

Stick a pry bar under the mount and try to move it up, (the hook end of a small crow bar works well). If it moves 1/2" or better, that's likely your problem. When I took mine out it didn't look bad - only a small crack in the rubber near the steel insert. When I went to put the new one in and discovered that I had to lift the engine another 1/2", I figured I was on to something. Sure enough, new one eliminated that clunking noise I despised for over 6 months. I had previously replaced shocks & struts and sway bar end links.