Hi All

I have a suspension clunk coming from the front of the car, (2005 S40 non turbo), it appears to be worse on the right front. I have attempted to move things around while on axel stands but I haven’t been able to recreate the clunk.

When I drive off my driveway onto the road it clunks.

Pot holes can make it clunk.

Setting off from stop can make it clunk.

Braking can make it clunk.

Normal driving is ok, no noticeable clunk.

The suspension doesn’t feel soft or bouncy.

The car has only done 82k miles.

Is there a known suspension/steering/? part that clunks and is the first “go to” part to inspect or replace?

Thx.

 

My first guess would be the rear bushing on the right lower control arm. That could cause all those symptoms, and they're known for perishing.

Beyond that, there are a host of things that could be implicated - sway bar bushings / links, ball joint, strut or strut mount, etc. FWIW, my own 2005 V50 has (at least) a bad axle and one bad bushing, so I just ordered lower control arms, struts (loaded), strut mounts and axles - I figure I'll do it once, get it aligned, and will be done with it for a few years (most likely until after I sell it).

 

update.

I jacked the car up and put it on axle stands (no load on the suspension) and tried to move all the suspension bits by pulling on the wheels and using a pry bar but i couldn't move anything sufficiently to make a clunk.

I put the car on ramps so the weight was on the wheels (suspension under load) and tried bouncing the car and again tried with the pry bar but i cannot move anything enough to make the sound.

nothing appears to be loose.

the only part that looks suspect is the rear bushing on the control arm (thanks Habbyguy for that suggestion).
On axle stands so no load on the suspension
On axle stands so no load on the suspension. I would assume it should be closer to the middle. The rubber in the middle looks a little torn.

 

They sure look like toast to me, though the camera angle can play tricks. FWIW, I'd suggest replacing the control arms, which include the bushings and ball joint - saves a lot of hassle and time, and they're really not all that spendy.

 

I ordered these from amazon. Very cheep at $40 each, no reviews, hopefully they will be ok and hopefully they will cure the clunk.

 

When mine had a clunk it was the pax side upper motor mount. The rubber had split in two.

 

If your car is like mine, braking very gently won't make anything clunk, but hitting the brakes fairly hard will produce a very noticeable, sharp response that you can feel in the steering wheel, with a slightly muted metallic sound from the front end.

If there's absolutely zero sensation through the steering wheel when the clunk happens, it could be a motor mount, though that should be easy enough to check by watching the engine rotate when the car is shifted through R-N-D and back. It'll rotate a little with new mounts, of course, but movement should be pretty obviously excessive with a mount like the one in the previous post (yikes...). ;-)

 

with the engine turned off, I tried to move the engine around in the engine bay, i can get it to move a little but i don't think it's the engine mounts that are the problem.
With the car on axle stands (so i can crawl underneath) and the engine turned on, moving from drive to reverse i think it is the rear control arm bushings. Both rear control arm bushings look bad (to my untrained eye) but the right one moves more than the left.
Hopefully the new parts will arrive from amazon and do the trick.

 

My bet is that the new control arms (or pressing in new bushings if you're brave and have a press and way too much spare time) will fix the problem. Just don't forget to do an alignment when you're done.

I'd add that if you know you're going to be replacing anything else up there, like struts or axles or tie rod ends, you should do it at the same time so you don't have to do multiple alignments.

 

Update: -

I installed the $40 amazon control arms with new bushings, front and back and new ball joints and the clunk has gone.

The $40 parts fit well but we will see if they last. See posting above for amazon links to the control arms.

 

FWIW, I did the front end on my 2005 V50 2.4i yesterday (130,000 miles).

Since I didn't want to be replacing all the "normal suspects" as they age out over the next year, I replaced the lower control arms (with ball joints), the front struts (re-used the springs on the Bilstein struts), strut mounts (old ones looked OK, but it's not worth taking a chance), and both axles (one was clearly going south - the other seemed to be fine, but had enough miles I wasn't going to wait around for it to fail). And I just took it in for a 4-wheel alignment this morning (after making sure it wasn't TOO far out to drive the 8 miles to the shop).

The end result is a car that drives, handles and feels like a new one. It wasn't really "bad" before, but it's amazing how much the changes have made the car feel a lot more solid and planted. Speed bumps are SO much smoother (probably due to both the main LCA bushings and at least one front strut having been marginal), and I couldn't be happier. The only let-downs were that the new strut bellows I bought were WAY too small to fit - and in fact, there would have been no way in the world to get the supplied (too-long) bumper inside the supplied bellows (which were about half the diameter of the originals). Happily, the old bellows were in great shape, as was the old bumper, and the new strut mounts had the same design, so they slotted together like factory parts. Also one of the rear (big) bushings wasn't pressed all the way onto the LCA (couldn't seat it with a 3-pound sledge and wooden blocks, but my 12-ton press wasn't taking no for an answer).

$550 all-up, and 4-5 hours work to do it all was a very reasonable investment, IMHO.