What could cause a knocking sound when turning the car left or right?

Question

The car is a 98 Cavalier and is front wheel drive. It only knocks when turning sharply, example - turning left at an intersection doesn't cause the noise, turning into a driveway does. Parked if you turn the wheel sharply it will make the noise. Ideas? the CV Joint?

Answer 1

Most likely the source of the knocking you are hearing is one or more of the four constant velocity (CV) joints going bad.

Your Cavalier is a front wheel drive car. Accordingly, connected to each of the front wheels is a short drive shaft (called a half shaft) with a CV joint on either end of it. The CV-joint is a cage with bearings inside it that provides a flexible joint on each end of the half shaft. The CV joints perform two purposes: one to allow for a flexible connection to your front wheels, which necessarily must also be able to turn and go up and down over bumps while still connected to the transmission--and the other to help allow for different speeds of the left and right wheels under power since, for example, when you turn one way or the other, the wheel on the outside of the turn must travel farther than the one on the inside of the turn. If they both turned at the same speed one would be scrubbing the road as the other completed its larger circle of travel.

Now, that said, these caged bearings inside the CV joint are surrounded by grease which is held in by a rubber boot (called a CV Boot). Often the boot fails--gets torn or worn out from use--and the grease either gets contaminated with dirt or escapes. In either case, the lack of grease, or contamination of grease causes the bearings to wear out, and as they do they no longer perform the job they were designed to do, and they begin to "knock" when you are going around turns because the CV-Joint begins to bind instead of rotating smoothly.


While I have changed a number of them myself over the years, and it is not a terribly difficult task if you are mechanically inclined, there is a good bit of work involved. The front brakes have to be removed and the front hubs released and the half shafts extracted. Then you can either replace the CV joints, or inspect them, and, if in good condition, repack them with new grease and fit them with new boots and reinstall the assemblies, or you can replace the entire half shaft on each side, which will include both the inner and outer CV joints. Becuase the rebuild process is time consuming, even though it involves fewer parts many shops will just go ahead and replace the whole assembly because the shop charges for time would exceed the differential in the cost of the parts.

Answer 2

CV Joints are bad.
The boot over it has most likely torn and the grease in the boot has leaked out. Now the joint is bad. You will have to replace the axle shaft.
Once and awhile look under there like when you change the oil check the cv boots to make sure they are ok.
Preventative is the way to go. If you see a torn boot replace it fast and you may be able to save the cost of an axle.

Answer 3

could be a strut or a frame bushing maybe even a wheel bearing, tie rod idle arm pitman arm take it to a shop and have someone look at it... you could just jack the car up and have someone shake it while you look but then if you dont what you looking at there are only a few things pop id say it was a axle bearing... just take it to a shop before something fall off or breaks when you driving which cost alot more than checking it out which is free in most places

Answer 4

nope, probably not wheel bearings. open hood and have a friend help you by turning the wheel to the left or right and start moving slowly while you are walking beside the car. you will probably hear the noise in the upper part of the strut. this noise would be the upper strut mount. or better yet take it to a qualified professional for proper diagnosis and repair.

Answer 5

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Check you motor mount most likely the cause. Have someone put it in gear while you are watching with the hood up will see the engine lift a bit, if turning left most likely the left side

Answer 6

Front-wheel-drive cars usually make a clattering noise while turning when the CV joints are wearing out. Don't know about the wheel bearing, except that when they start to grind, it is costly.

Answer 7

Not that I'm a mechanic but from previous experience I'd say CV joints or bearings or both. This used to happen to me when I'd turn a corner sharply.

Answer 8

Check the half shafts (that's what they are called on a HMMWV anyway). They run from the dif to the wheels. When you turn sharply, if one of them is loose, you can get some knocking sounds.

Answer 9

yes you have a bad CV joint or even a bad strut assembly. Either way you need to repair/replace and realign from there. Could also be a bad inner tie rod end, know for these to go on FWD cars.

Answer 10

knocking sound turning car left