Faint Steering Clunk

[gdanaher]

I've noticed lately that I have a slight clunk that I can feel through the steering wheel, normally at very low speeds as when first moving. I can sometimes feel it at higher speeds but it tends to fade into the road noise and vibration. Acts as if it is not brakes but either a u-joint in the steering column itself or ball joint or tie rod end. Car is an 07 V6 with roughly 43k miles. Haven't had time to look at it nor take to dealer for their professional opinion, and don't recall seeing this issue previously noted on the group. Anyone else experience this, and what did you discover?

[alexorozco92]

Cv boot, us guys with coils noticed it as well.
we discussed this on the hellaflush fitment thread.

[Glenn8963]

Originally Posted by gdanaher

I've noticed lately that I have a slight clunk that I can feel through the steering wheel, normally at very low speeds as when first moving. I can sometimes feel it at higher speeds but it tends to fade into the road noise and vibration. Acts as if it is not brakes but either a u-joint in the steering column itself or ball joint or tie rod end. Car is an 07 V6 with roughly 43k miles. Haven't had time to look at it nor take to dealer for their professional opinion, and don't recall seeing this issue previously noted on the group. Anyone else experience this, and what did you discover?

i personally had an inner tie rod end do this. best way to diagnose is to remove the nuts holding the outer tie rods to the spindles. then when disconnected, try and lift the tie rods up the push down in a straight up/down motion. any stiffness is a bad inner tie rod...

at first, i thought bushings, and a mechanic thought that since it was coming from the steering column, it must have been the column that was binding, or the steering u-joint.
when the outer tie rod ends were disconnected like i said above, this is when it was confirmed to be the inner tie rod.

[qng001]

Originally Posted by gdanaher

I've noticed lately that I have a slight clunk that I can feel through the steering wheel, normally at very low speeds as when first moving. I can sometimes feel it at higher speeds but it tends to fade into the road noise and vibration. Acts as if it is not brakes but either a u-joint in the steering column itself or ball joint or tie rod end. Car is an 07 V6 with roughly 43k miles. Haven't had time to look at it nor take to dealer for their professional opinion, and don't recall seeing this issue previously noted on the group. Anyone else experience this, and what did you discover?

I had a slight knock that you can feel in the steering and brakes last week. I sprayed some lubricate in the spline of the intermediate steering shaft. Knock went away. The car smelled of fumes for a day or two, but no more knocks.

You can find the discussion here...
Intermediate Steering Shaft - Greasing DIY

I had a clunky noise in my steering on my old Altima once, I had to replace a CV joint.

Clunk or knocks can be annoying and hard to find.