Vrs rattly/ knock

[rossroof]

I am looking to see if theres any obvious issues with this as i am a tech and had a quick friday afternoon swatch and seen no concerning issues. Bought my fabia a month ago and over the last couple of weeks ive started getting a rattle when in low gears or it does it when you put it in too high a gear for the speed. Also on uneven road surfaces. It kind of sounds like a golf ball on the sub frame. Any heads up on this?? I checked the ball joints and bushes etc, exhaust ok. The only thing i never done was take undertray off to check engine/ gearbox mounts. Its getting worse tho so hopefully it will be an easy find when i get more time.

Cheers

[sepulchrave]

Drop links or ARB bushes.

[StevesTruck]

Yep, drop the front wheels off and give the arntiroll bar a pull.

 

Or top mounts. 

[rossroof]

I will have another look guys, i did check the drop links first and they seemed fine. It may be the inner bushes tho. Its not as high as the strut tops, it seems to be at floorpan level. cheers

[sepulchrave]

You can't check the drop links properly because the weight of the car keeps them under load so they feel tight all the time, if you jack one side up you can use another jack under the wishbone to unload the drop link to see if it's loose.

Better yet get the whole front of the car up on axle stands and remove both wheels then you can inspect the drop links and ARB bushes at the same time, you'll still need to jack under each wishbone to unload the drop link first.

[rossroof]

Cheers mate ????????

[rossroof]

My thumbs up turned into question marks! Lol

[rossroof]

This drove me demented but finally got to the bottom of it. After thoroughly checking all suspension, ball joints, bushes, component security etc, removing engine and gearbox mounts and then calling it off till another day!!! I am shocked to say i found it after 2 minutes today...... I jokingly said to another tech."its probably a rattly caliper".......it bloody was. Nsf caliper was rattling excessively in its bottom slide, some tit ground down the slide pin too much!!! A temp fix of heat shrink and some grease the noise is gone. I did try to check to see if the rattle would go away on test drive but because it was when the engine was under load it was hard to do this whilst braking!! I almost just bought drop links but so happy i kept digging on this. And.......nice quiet happy driving again.....bliss.