My 2000 Neon is making a noise.?

Question

My Neon makes a soft grinding or rubbing noise that seems to come from the tires or axle. The slower I go, the better I can hear it. I only hear it when the windows are down. The noise is getting pregressively worse. My 1996 Neon made the same noise, but no one knew what it was. It got wrecked before I found out. Is this something that is prone to happen to Neons?

Answer 1

Could be a couple of things. 1st, depending on the miles you have on the vehicle, it may be your brakes. They start out by making a slight grinding noise when braking. Then get worse in time to a point where the pad and rotor are metal to metal constantly. Please, check them first.
2nd thing could be a bad bearing. If a bearing is bad, it usually gets louder when turning in the respective direction. I'm telling you this because I run into these problems everyday. I work at a local Chrysler Dealership her in town.

Answer 2

First of all jack it up and remove the tires, and check the brake pads! -- Both sides. There is a tab on the end of the pad, and when it gets worn down enough, (they are referred to as "squeakers") but sometimes they sound more like "dragging metal! If the wear goes further, they are "grinding metal on metal, as the brake pads are totally gone-- now and you are "eating the disks"! If the pads look good on both sides of the disk,( note that the disks should be smooth to the touch, - even if "grooved" from previous damage),--- check the bottom of the disk (in back side) and see that the "dust cover" isn't dragging on the brake disk, --(you could have run over something and bent it!) ... By the way wait till the brakes have cooled down from driving, the disks get real hot on braking!!

Check wheel bearings.....Put wheels back on and "rattle wheels in and out violently to check for bad wheel bearings. You do this by grabing the wheel top and bottom, and "rocking it" by applying pressure at bottom, and pulling out at top, then "jamming it in at the top - while pulling out at the bottom. There should be very litle "play" if any at all while you do this! Wheel bearings can make a pretty bad noise also!!

A bad axle will make noise that you may only hear through open window (at the beginning), -- but it usually makes a knocking (or chirping noise in early stages),-- if bad enough it will "jerk" the wheel when you are making a very sharp turn (near full travel in either direction), and of course the slower you are going the worse it will jerk, the speed of jerking -will vary with car speed!

I have a 96 neon, and it has nearly 200,000 on it by now, and the wheel bearings are just fine (so far)!

Answer 3

You say nothing about applying the brakes to get this noise so I guess that eliminates that problem. I only hear it with windows down, thats interesting. Noises in a car can be very confusing, a noise in the front can actually be coming from the opposite side or even the rear.Have someone outside listen as you drive by, slowly, one side then the other. You should be able to locate the origin of the noise.

Answer 4

i own a repair shop,and i have heard the noise your talking about before,on the one i was working on it was the brakes making the noise,and all it was doing was warning that the brakes were getting low on it,this is the only sound i have heard them make other than one that had a bad wheel bearing in it,and it will constantly make that noise your describing,it might pay you to have it checked out at a repair shop,they don't charge anything to check one ,and it might give a quick answer to your question,good luck i hope this help,s.

Answer 5

Bad bearing. Had a 2001 Neon as a service loaner that had one.

Answer 6

It sounds like a brake part dragging inside the wheel. I would get it checked out.

Answer 7

You are going too slow over the speed bumps.

Answer 8

get a new car