front suspension 96 camry

[tmauldin]

when driving there is a noise coming from passenger front , dont know how to explain noise, sort of a rumble i guess.

grabbed the passenger front wheel at 9 and 3 oclock, pushed and pulled it move the other side with it.

took of the wheel, grabbed lower tie rod, it didnt seem to move up and down.

grabbed the shaft that is behind and comes directly from the center of rotor? guess that is the drive shaft or half shaft??

i can tell it has slack in it, because it makes a noise when pulling and when pushing, guess it is a pop noise, though it sounds more to that of metal hitting, clinking i guess..

would this be the halfshaft, that is making noise, and if it makes noise from the passsenger side of vehicle does that mean the problem is on the driver side

[Mister_Perkins]

the axle will have side to side motion in play. This is normal. what you want to check for the axle is the Up and Down motion of the axle. Excessive up and down movement is bad.

If its a constant Humming noise while driving, it could either be a bad wheel bearing or excessive road force on the tires. If your tire is tight in all positions (sides and top) Pushing and pulling then i would bring the car to a tire shop and have them check the tires out.

[tmauldin]

the axle does not move up or down

driver side
the inside edge of a fairly new front driver side tire is worn to wires,

passenger side
discovered the bottom half of passenger cv boot is cracked open

could these two things and the bowling ball humm sound on passenger side during driving, be the root of a bad passenger side cv boot? or passenger lower baLL joint ? or passenger wheel bearings? or all three

can something on the passenger side, cause the inside edge of driver side tire to be smooth?

[JCamry94]

At what speeds does the noise happen? Any feeling incorporated with the noise (vibration)? How old is the boot, axle? Find a big parking lot and turn and listen for it then esp.

Jack up the car and check the boots for ANY rips or breaks. Check ALL of the boots.

[tmauldin]

noise occurs anywhere from 2 mph -30 mph,
noise occurs while turning when pulling onto the highway at 2 mph
noise when driving straight on street 10 mph

noise occurs in all three above relative to the roughness street (rocks) (speed bumps)

which could be why when at highway speed (60 mph) there is no noise just vibration

bought the car three yrs ago, do not know age of boot or axle



know for sure the boot on the passenger side is ripped open on bottom
am hoping it is just the boot

[fenixus]

it could be your wheel bearings too ... mine sounded just like a rolling bowling ball when driving slowly (easiest to hear at such speeds) and I had some nasty highway vibrations 50mph+ too ...

My wheel bearings were actually seized and disintegrated inside hubs, so car was literally rolling on hubs (instead of hubbearings) in fronts ... still it had zero play on tires ... check for free spin on front wheels with the whole axle jacked up (and trans in Neutral). even rims were not getting excessively hot even after driving long distance ...

also another noise thing that sounds similar is severely seized calipers, metal pads rubbing rotors will sound similar, maybe less "gravely", but it will make noise too. do you feel like your car was feeling heavy (like towing e.g. a boat) or has less power than in past?
if the brakes are problem, then it's quite easy to tell (check free spin as above) as usually applying little brakes will stop the car on dime, dragging brakes make cars stop very fast they will also make rotors VERY hot and looking black & glazed.