hi, this is my last resort as google can’t seem to bring any decent info on my problem since its so perculiar…
anyway, i have a peugeot 405 gtxi 1.9, petrol, 1990. its done 110k. last week it passed the mot just fine hence meaning that the engine and car in general are at least fair and road worthy. the cam belt was last changed at 60k.
now, i was driving up a small hill yesterday, only around 20mph, whilst shifting into 3rd gear I heard a sudden thud (more like the noise that you get when you stall very hard) and the car stopped, but kept running. thinking that something major had just happened, i got out, looked around, underneath, and nothing i could see was damaged. in fact the car operates just fine so i continued driving thinking nothing of it. but i noticed that the gears seemed a lot more loose and free, whereas before they were stiffer, and when i drive with my windows down i can hear a sort of rattling noise, which rattles/ticks in proportion to the speed of the car, and is inaudible when stopped, making it impossible to tell where its coming from.
i have a feeling its the gearbox, since its just ‘feels’ different (i can feel the rattle through the gear knob, but very slight). however i can’t be sure since i can’t pin point where the sound is coming from directly.
so if anyone can shed any light on this (and how much £££ to fix it) i would be eternally grateful. thanks!
Bearing in the transmission? Or broken teeth? One shaft in there seems to be affected, but you may (probably) have loose metal floating around, with can REALLY jam up the works and cause major cash problems for you. I don’t know the 1990 405, but the old 404’s had tons of space around the engine, and the tranny may be easily accesible. Hopefully.
When you say the car stopped, do you mean it jerked to a stop, you braked it to a stop, or, since you were going uphill, it slowed to a stop since you had the clutch in and was preoccupied with the mysterious sound.
Did it make that sound when you released the clutch, or when you shifted out of second or into third, or upon releasing the clutch into third.
Also, do you get clunks when to engage reverse after moving forward?
Try downshifting at speed, see if that causes any sort of clunk as well.
yeah, it just jerked which considerably slowed it down, then i applied the brakes to finally stop it. i believe it happened just as i slid the gear knob into third and started to release the clutch to engange the engine. i have heard no more clunks, just the looser feeling in the gears and quiet rattling noise. downshifting doesn’t produce any strange response.
thanks for your time guys, hopefully we can get to the bottom of this. it would of been less strange if the car just broke down, but because its working fine causes me some concern!
Do you notice that the shift lever moves around in your hand a lot more on acceleration/deceleration? If so, I’d say engineer_comp_geek’s assessment is on target. That’s a pretty common symptom of broken transmission/motor mounts. Otherwise …
It’s not out of the question, but I wouldn’t expect this to give all of the symptoms you described. With the info we have so far, I suspect an internal transmission problem.
At this point, the most helpful thing would be to jack the car up and run it in gear with the drive wheels off the ground. Locate the noise and inspect the transmission and engine mounts.
If it is a transmission problem, I venture the repair might cost 250+ pounds (WAG as I’m not familiar with that particular model, typical UK repair prices, or the exact exchange rate between pounds and dollars).
A broken or loose support is feasible. It is possible that when (if!) your car broke a transmission or motor mount that it managed to damaged something else in the driveline that is causing the rattling. Rattling and ticking noises with respect to speed are virtually always caused by a rotating assembly. It could be anywhere in the driveline; from internal to the gearbox to part of the driveshaft and hub assemblies. Can you tell if the noise is related to engine speed or road speed?
With cars, one weak link can cause a domino effect. At best it could be annoying, at worst it could cause expensive damage. If you’re at all mechanically-inclined, I think you should check it out. Otherwise, have a qualified mechanic take a look at it.
thanks for the info, i’ll have to see a mechanic tomorrow for the dreaded estimate… with regard to the rattling sound, its independant of the engine speed, and fully related to the speed, also happens in neutral etc…
hmm, well this sounds like the best suggestion yet, reason being is that i had a new clutch put in last week! maybe they botched the job up? or is the clutch disc independant of the clutch job? it was done at an official pug dealership, so…
if it is the clutch disc, would it rattle in relation to car speed? the more i think about it, the plausible it seems since the incident happened AS i was lifting the clutch into 3rd.
thanks for all the great feedback, keep em coming!
Sounds quite reasonable, due to the short span of time from the clutch service to the incident you describe. Even dealerships aren’t immune to the occasional “oops”. A typical clutch job usually involves resurfacing the flywheel and replacing the clutch disk, pressure plate, throw-out bearing, and (sometimes) the pilot bearing. Your receipt probably has a break-down of the parts and labor, if you want to make sure. However, from past experience, a botched job will usually make it much more difficult to get the car into gear instead of making it more ‘loose and free’. That part is curious.
Based on the variety of feedback we’ve seen here, I’m genuinely interested to hear what you find out. But the clutch idea sounds better and better.
Looser feeling in shifting would not be a typical symptom of a broken mount. Noise related to road speed does not support the notion of a clutch problem. I wouldn’t say any of these ideas are impossible, but it still sounds more like a transmission (gearbox) problem than anything else.
