Heya

I'm a little lost and am hoping someone can help point me to the appropriate forum topic and/or aim me in the right direction here.

Last Tuesday I popped out to the shops but before I got halfway down the block (under 30mph on a straight road), the car suddenly kicked up this awful racket: it sounded like something went crunch and dropped underneath the car and like I was dragging it, kicking and screaming, down the road. I really thought something had come loose and was scraping along. It made a continuous horrendous, screechy, clunky noise. As I hadn't gone far, I managed to get back home. Looked under the car: nothing dragging. Didn't look like the exhaust or muffler had come loose. To the untechnically trained eye, it seemed ok.

Any ideas?

Any ideas if this is related to another problem I've had with the car? Occasionally -- rarely, but consistently over time -- my car makes a crunching/scraping/squealing noise. It's brief and stays quiet for a long time after each incident. It sounds like it comes from the rear passenger side, but I'm not great with sound direction. This noise occurs when I go around corners. Sometimes it happens when I go around a roundabout (moving forward, clockwise). Sometimes it happens when I reverse around a corner (moving backward, clockwise). A friend suggested that it might be a gaiters issue, as his car (a Ford) had a similar problem.

I'm not confident to drive my car in this condition. I've just rung my local garage, who said they would come by Monday morning to have a look-see and pick the car up. (They said no charge for bringing my car back to the garage, provided they do work on it ...... I hope this is usual practice?)

I'm hoping to find some information about possible causes for these two problems, and related appropriate vocabulary!, so that I can reasonably judge what the garage tells me and so that I sound reasonably informed back at them. (And should I be thinking of a second opinion for any repair work?)

Any information appreciated.

I had a small stone lodge itself between the brake caliper and the front brake disc once. Made a terrible noise. I poked it out with a screwdriver.

Another possibility is some wire wrapped around a drive shaft maybe.

try and locate where the noise is coming from drive your car back and forth while a mate stands next to it. i presume it only does it while it is driving. if nothing can be seen underneath, it could be gearbox problem or rear shoes collapsed in the rear drums maybe

One other thing is it may be a stone trapped between a brake disc and the dust shield.

I had exactly the same problem it sounded just like the exhaust was hanging off and being scrapped behind me down the road!

As some of the other posters have mentioned it could hopefully be a stray stone between the brake caliper and the front brake disc which turned out to be my problem. The sound was really loud and sounded pretty terminal, but the stone must have worked it way loose by itself....

I had a stone in the front off side brake a few weeks back - horrendous noise, rattling and scraping, very loud and alarming. A knackered catalytic converter can be pretty noisy too once the ceramic honeycomb has started to break up and if that is broken and loose inside the casing you may hear scraping or sliding on corners. If you want to check that just knock the cat casing and if you hear a rattling noise it's shot.

Cheers all -- useful information. The guy said a caught stone can cause similar noises (without any prompting from me). My problem turned out to be a loose brake spring, which was quickly fixed with only a labour charge.

Jack the car up and spin the wheels. See if you can hear it then.

Here's a follow-up question: Is it safe for the car, damage-wise, to drive it around in this kind of condition??

More to the story:

I'd rung the garage to pick up my car for me -- because I wasn't sure if it could be driven without causing further damage. I was explicit in my concern, and the garage said they'd be happy to pick the car up. I thought this meant some form of "tow"....because, all what I said. Turns out the guys drove my car back to the garage. My partner was home when they collected the car, I wasn't, and he didn't tell me this until later on that evening.

Meanwhile, when I went to collect my car that afternoon, I had a conversation with the mechanic about it, and I explicitly asked: "Is it OK to drive when I hear this noise, or is it a pull-over-as-soon-as thing?" Much waffle about safety on motorways (...duh) and then he said he really couldn't say one way or the other. (... wtf?) But what he didn't say was: "Sure thing it's okay, lady, I drove your car from your house to here this morning: it was fine!" (And there's me thinking they'd towed the car.)

So now I'm wondering how much possible damage was done to whatever wheel bits, if that brake spring had come loose and was scraping. I don't even know whether it still made a hellish racket when the garage collected my car -- because the damn garage didn't tell me they didn't tow it!

Clearly: I will find another garage for future endeavours. But meanwhile: should I be thinking about looking for wheel damage?

(Also: they charged me for a whole hour's labour ... and quoted the pre-VAT price to me over the phone (I didn't think to ask) ... so I had a nice 20% price hike in what I thought I'd be paying, when I went to sort the bill. Not v happy. :-/ Does it merit the better part of an hour's labour to take the wheel apart enough to find the brake spring??)

Probably not a good idea to drive it if it was still making the noise. If it was a retaining spring on a front disc brake they may have removed it before driving to the garage to effect a repair. Leaving it in place could score the disc or destroy the spring, or both, but it depends on how far they drove. If it was a rear brake, assuming you have rear drums, a loose spring could score the inside of the drum or damage other components. They would probably check all of these things and replace what was necessary (happily charging you for the damage they may have caused) so I wouldn't worry that anything is wrong now.

An hour to fix it is not too bad and if they didn't charge for collection I'd say it was fair. They should quote VAT to retail customers, but in my experience they never do.

Thanks MODVRS, much appreciated. No, they didn't charge for collection or for any parts. Just the labour.

(Also: they charged me for a whole hour's labour ... and quoted the pre-VAT price to me over the phone (I didn't think to ask) ... so I had a nice 20% price hike in what I thought I'd be paying, when I went to sort the bill. Not v happy. :-/ Does it merit the better part of an hour's labour to take the wheel apart enough to find the brake spring??)

I think that's very reasonable, you may want to reconsider your stance on how people make a living and businesses keep trading.

I think that's very reasonable, you may want to reconsider your stance on how people make a living and businesses keep trading.

I beg your pardon? I meant it as an honest question. If an hour's labour is fair for the work done, then that's fine. If it isn't fair, then I want to know. I don't have a ton of experience with cars and garages, and one way to fix that is to ask questions ...

some garages charge a minimum of 30mins or 1hrs labour regardless of the job,

also i don't think any garage i have ever used have quoted me WITH VAT. it's very frustrating and i'm sure it has caught a few of us out over the years.

it would be interesting to know what there hourly rate is..

my local garage(i send them alot of business) only charges £30 an hour and it's a professional, smart and well staffed facility.

if you only paid £30 plus VAT then thats a bargain. but i doubt that you did. :-)

Edited 15 August, 201114 yr by Sonner

if you only paid £30 plus VAT then thats a bargain. but i doubt that you did. :-)

It was £40/hr, plus VAT. You start wonder if you ought to break something else on the car as well, to make it worth the £48. :p