So on my drive in to work this morning, I noticed a “popping” noise, it sounded quite a bit like popcorn popping, coming from under the left front wheel of my car. (a 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis) I noticed it on one turn on the way home from work last night but didn’t think much of it. This morning it seemed to get worse with acceleration or harder turns… I spoke with some coworkers and they pretty much all agreed it’s probably my CV joint letting me know that it won’t be around too much longer. I have an appointment to bring the car in for service first-thing tomorrow morning, but I’m wondering if I’m safe to drive it home from work and then to drive it in to the dealership tomorrow morning… It’s only about 10-15 miles from the office to my house, and it’s all on side streets (no highway driving)… The dealership is even closer to my house…
So how long do these things last after the first popping noise occurs? Should I just get the car towed from the office or can these go on for weeks like this without too much concern? I just don’t want the car to die on me in the middle of an intersection again… I’ve been through that experience too many times in my life.
Yup. It’s safest to consider the popping sound as being the same as a dash light indicating your oil’s low–Fix it now because it most certainly will not get better, even with lots of rest and plenty of fluids.
Nothing to replacing those things you know, it’s just one nut and a 6 bolts more than changing a tire. Well that, and a couple of bolts to disconnect the strut, and a few more to disengage a suspension component or two. Don’t approach the car with anything less than a 24 inch breaker bar. Which is not to be confused with a 24 hour bar break.
Address the problem now, before the snow monster dumps on you! And in the mean time, keep your foot off the gas when going around corners whenever possible. It’ll buy you a few more miles, but it won’t get you through the winter.
We had a similar problem with our Honda. I was sure it must be the CV joint. It turned out to be a problem with the spline. This has been temporarily corrected with lubrication, but will eventually need to be replaced. Make sure you trust the shop you take it to.
I’ve run on a noisy CV joint for a couple weeks in a 89 Camry bearing just over a ton of newspapers. You should be able to get it to the mechanic just fine.
If the noise only occurs during tight turns under load (accelerating), the joint may last for well over a year before finally giving way. Of course, it may not, as there’s no way to accurately predict such things, but I’ve seen lots of them go for many months afer noise was first heard.
If the noise occurs while going straight or nearly so, I’d be less confident of it lasting very long. Still, the odds of it coming apart during the next 20 miles, while not zero, are very, very low.
Thanks for all the advice, guys – I know it’s an amazingly vague question, I just wanted to make sure it’s okay that I’m not calling a tow truck right now.
Just thinking about this… I’m not a mechanic, but isn’t a Grand Marquis a rear-wheel drive vehicle? CV joints are for front wheel drive, if I’m not mistaken. If both of those are true then it’s not your CV joint. And it would seem pretty early to have a problem with ball joints.
It needed a new set of struts up front. I was a little surprised that they went so quickly, but I bought the car used about a year ago so who knows what the previous owner was doing to it… Oh well. Thanks for the advice, all – and tolerating my obvious ignorance of all things car.
