loud bang!

[Guest]

Hi

I have a 2009 1.6 petrol 2.5. It has 58k on the clock.

I was joining the motorway today and I heard a loud bank, sounded like a golf ball hitting the tailgate really hard.

I can't see any damage, all the suspension seems to be connected, car is level and drives and handles fine with no noise.

Anything else I can check? Car had been parked and it rained all day yesterday, I wondered if it was the back hub freeing as they stick on sometimes when they get wet.

Steering wheel is straight and the car seems level.

There is a little bit of damage to the rear alloy I don't remember seeing before, I was proud they were all fine except some stone chips after 9 years!

Anything prone to snapping on these cars?

Thanks

[dezwez]

Front or rear coil springs can break so you need to take a good look as they can break at the bottoms which is

hard to see.

[Dee_82]

The hub would have freed itself long before hitting the motorway unless you managed to drag the wheel along all that way! Just double check the top and bottom of each coil is firmly in place, they should nest in to a groove.

You might have just run over to crap on the road. what looked like a coil fell off a lorry in front of me last year the bang it made was incredible, it had made a deep cut in the plastic trim down the side of the car and dented the chassis. Thankfully it missed anything important.

It will also be worth checking to see if the handbrake is still even on both sides, A relative of mine had a back plate on a Toyota Corolla corrode to dust which caused the tensioner gubbins to fly off, it must have jammed at some point and cracked the disc.    

 

[TomsFocus]

Rear drop links often break on these but they're easy to spot.  I'd agree with above, snapped spring is a very likely culprit and difficult to see as you often only lose one coil from the end.

 

[Guest]

thanks guys, I just had another good look and checked all the studs were still there too. I had a front spring go on my last car and that really grabbed my attention!

 

[Botus]

hitting debris that flies up and hits the underside of the car and or stones hitting the screen can give an extraordinarily loud noise

with a slightly damaged wheel you could even have sent a large rock in to the side of another car.... happened to me just the other day - the noise was horrendous - "wasn't even sure I sent it" but I saw something hit the other car

[F0CUE]

The rear upper arm bushes went on mines and would bang like described. You need to jack up high to inspect them though in the upper right hand side.

[isetta]

could it have been a golfball?  One day I was driving on A217 at Woodhatch by the Beehive pub (I realise very few will know this place as this is nationwide and kind of global site) and a golf ball hit my windscreen. No idea where it came from, not by a park or golf course. 

[Guest]

I have had a good look and everything seems okay.

It was more of an impact noise (like a golf ball) 

I had something similar happen before and the next time I washed it there was a big stone chip on the roof.

Thanks for all the help.

[TimST2]

I drove past a tractor coming the other way once and a huge piece of mud (no doubt embedded with stones) flew off its wheel and hit the roof of my previous Fiesta right above my head! Made a hell of a noise, a small dent and chipped the paint 😑

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[ScaniaPBman]

The threat does not always come from the vehicle directly in front.

A year or so back I was travelling down a busy M1 driving a fully loaded coach. There suddenly appeared from under the rear of the vehicle in front, part of a commercial vehicle drum brake curved and the size of your hand. No time to avoid it and I just clipped the corner of it with my rear right outer tyre.

It was propelled at high speed under the central crash barrier on to the carriageway on the other side!

For the rest of the journey south, I kept well clear of any truck in front since there was a good chance he had really dodgy brakes.

No damage to the tyre and we got to Spain and back with no further problems.

ScaniaPBman.

[Guest]

It's a filter lane you don't stop at, there's no give way so it's a very fast entry slip, there was a SUV in front of my and a lorry in front of him.

It's badly worn anti slip road material making it hard to see any debris and the eyes ain't what they used to be!

[FatHead1979]

On 12/20/2018 at 11:33 AM, Botus said:

hitting debris that flies up and hits the underside of the car and or stones hitting the screen can give an extraordinarily loud noise

with a slightly damaged wheel you could even have sent a large rock in to the side of another car.... happened to me just the other day - the noise was horrendous - "wasn't even sure I sent it" but I saw something hit the other car

Too right, I ran over a small(ish) branch on an unlit national speed limit road.  I very nearly suffered a "brown pants"  moment and was convinced that something metallic and heavy had fallen off the car and hit the underside due to how loud the bang was!