What do you think it is and what should I do?

Question

While driving my car I can hear a rattling squeaky noise coming from the front left wheel. Also when braking I can feel the car shake or vibrate a little. What could be wrong and how much do you think it will cost to fix?

Answer 1

The shaking and vibration is due to improper alignment and a possible loose front left wheel...Get it checked out immediately!

Answer 2

It could be a number of things.
Wheel bearings
broken wheel
broken wheel hubs
tire bushing
it could be something as easy as a lose wheel or warped rotor.
When was the last time you changed your brake pads and had the rotors resurfaced?

What ya need to do, is pop off the wheel, and see if you can see any part with obvious wear. Look at the tire rod bushings, look at the brake pads/rotors, look at the threads on the hubs. If you dont see anything, then take your wheel into a tire store and ask them if it is broken. Just because theres no easy to see signs that the wheel is broken, it happens more then you would think.
If its fine, the next thing you need to do, is take off the rotors on both front wheels, and have them resurfaced. It may be that they are so worn down, that the tolerances between the brake pads and rotors arent right.
If this doesnt solve the problem, take it in, your probably going to need alot of work done. They may replace the wheel bearings, they may have to replace the hubs, they might have to replace the ball joints...
For us to determine the cost, we need to know what the car is. If you have a 90s geo prizm, its going to be much cheaper then a 2000 porsche 911.

Answer 3

You need to have your front brake rotors turned down to stop the brake pedal pulsation and shaking. If the front brake pads need changing, they'll give you a complete front brake job and make sure your brake calipers are operating properly and are bolted down tightly. If your car shakes and vibrates more and more as you speed up on the highway, you need your tires balanced as well. If your car pulls radically to the left or right when your on a flat road, then either you have a bad tire, or you need an alignment once the tires are known to be good. They can check for other loose front end components in the sway bar, steering and suspension when they do the brake work. The brake job will cost about $120, assuming you don't need all new rotors or calipers.

Answer 4

It's not the alignment. Alignment will cause neither squeaks nor vibrations.

This one is pretty straight forward.

Pulsation under braking is, 99.9% of the time associated with warped or hot-spotted brake rotors. This could also very easily explain the squeak from the left front. Depending on the year/make/model and the amount of runout and wear you may be able to have the existing brake rotors turned but replacement rotors are so cheap these days in many cases it is hardly worth the bother. New rotors will be thicker and thus more resistant to a repeat of the sort of damage and wear that is causing you issues now.

Answer 5

It could be a problem with the brake rotor and caliper. When was the last time you had the pads on the brakes replaced. Do it every 40K miles or so, depending on your driving.

Answer 6

Could be a number of things.
If it's more of a knocking, then the CV joint could be bad.
If it is a squeek, that's squeeks with bumps, you may have a bush that's gone bad.
If it's more of a shing kind of sound, then you have a sticking caliper which warped your rotor.

A mechanic will find it fairly quickly.

Answer 7

Could it be the wheel bearing, it might need to be repacked, but you need to get it checked ASAP

Answer 8

I'm booked up over the weekend, but if you want to drop it off Monday morning I'll have a look at it.