99 Lumina thumping

[Chancho]

I have a 99 lumina ahe when the car comes to a complete stop, and the car sits back up from braking i hear what seems like a clunking or a taping, i also hear it when i take off and let back off of the accelerator so basicly any time im going slow and the car is rocking forewards and backwards the car has 145k and i dont know what the service by the previous owner was like so no info there, so what does anyone think it is? struts, tierod end, or ball joints, to me idt doesent sound like ball joints because they dont clunk on turns or over bumps, and as for the tie rod ends, the steering on the car seems tight and responsive any help would be great

thanks

[19Cutlass94]

If the steering is tight I doubt its the tie-rods. If the struts were loose, you would hear a horrible noise over every bump... I know this happened to me... not fun... Could be the ball joints... jack up the front of the car and get a good breaker bar and test em to see if they have any play in them or not.

[Chancho]

thanks ill have to check that, too bad its raining now otherwise i'd be out there this minute, it is bothering me to no avail, but i thought when ball joints go bad they clunk all over not just stoping and accelerating, on my last car (a ford crown vic- never again) when the ball joints were bad the car just clunked and rattled everywhere

[dohc v6]

Chancho, thats a funny name. Anyways the thing that you are probably hearing is the strut. The struts in these cars are notorious for going bad after 40-50000 miles. Also what you need to check is, when you press on your breaks hard, how far does the car dip down. If it dips pretty low you more than likly have a blown strut. There are lots of things that can make a thumbing, bad strut, bad, strut mouning plate, even a brake caliper sticking. First do the test with stoping and then go from there. Also when you turn the car at like 50mph see if you get massive abouts of body roll. BAsically you need to do some research.

[Chancho]

i checked all that stuff, the car has soooooooooooo much body roll, i thought i was gunna flip while on the highway on bumps the car just keeps rocking back and forht complete difference to my 97 lumina with the police pack so i know the suspension is a little different but i dont think my lumina is supposed to feel like a 70's caddy fleetwood anyway im gunna change out the struts this weekend, ill let you all know how that goes, first time... it should be intresting

 

thinking of also getting eneregy suspension bushings for the front sway bar, what size is the lumina ls sway bar?