Picked up the car this afternoon - everything seems good so far. I will be more confident after about a week without any noise. Just to clarify, I do think that the dealer did check the TSBs, but likely looked too quickly at the titles and didn't associate my problem with the descriptions. Now having said that, if they had picked this up the first time, I would have had one sway link and the lower control arm replaced under warranty (I paid labour only as goodwill). But they cover the parts for both sides, which wouldn't been done under warranty. So in the end, other than my time for a couple visits, it probably wasn't all that bad overall for cost when including potential future repairs.

 

Craig:

I would point out the TSB to your dealer as you identifed the problem while under warranty, just as I did. That allowed me to get the goodwill parts post warranty for work that had to be done, which was better than nothing. And they did the TSB repair for free. The dealer has to realize that it's not your fault that they couldn't resolve the problem.

 

I had a noise like this on my old Shadow. It was the sway bar bushings any time they got wet/frozen. I was too cheap to put new ones.
My Sebring has never made a noise like this and it's an '04 with about 40K miles.

 

Bad news - the noise is still there. Same sound with the same random occurance. The TSB solution appears not to have made a difference. I had the bushings for the swaybars replaced the visit before last, so I suspect that my dealer will not be able to offer any other fixes. Is it possible that the problem is within the CV? I would guess not as something cracked, loose etc would be a constant noise. Maybe a siezing wheel bearing? I'm at slightly less mileage than Cordoba Man and the noise been present for about 3 months. Even though we are making terrible weather, I don't think that the bushing were wet yesterday afternoon when the noise appeared. I'm at a loss as to the next step.

 

I did a bit of investigating and noticed that a hard turn of the steering wheel seems to stop the noise, at least for a short while. This is done while stopped, and the turn is to the full right and left. Can somebody who is having the problem give this a try and see if it is repeatable?

 

Too bad it did not work. Thanks for letting us know Drutkay.

 

Cordoba Man - what are swaybar bushings? Maybe Drutkay could mention this to his dealer as well.

As far as my update, the dealer is not sure what my noise is still. Interesting, I had a quick oil change done recently and the dealer said that at the least, they could tighten some things in the undercarriage and the underhoodand the rattling has been occurring much less for some reason since then, but I expect that the rattling will get worse and continue to occur. Very strange problem that these cars have.

 

Craig: The stabilizer bar interconnects both front lower control arms of the vehicle and is attached to the front suspension cradle and the underbody of the vehicle. Attachment of the stabilizer bar to the front suspension cradle is through 2 rubber-isolator bushings and bushing retainers. The stabilizer bar to lower control arm attachment is done utilizing a ball joint type, stabilizer bar attaching link. These stabilzier links (aka swaybar link), which includes the bushing, help to dampen the stabilizer and are mounted just behind the wheel well on the underside of the car. My dealer changed the bushing as part of the first repair that I had to pay labour for. The noise has stopped for the time being. I had it on Sunday during one trip. When I took the car out of the garage to start a second trip, I heard a single "bang", as if a component fell back into place. No noise since. Given that my dealer has checked everything has been checked and is tight, I believe that one of the components has a bit of play and is working out of positon. The banging is caused as the part binds and then falls into place. My guess is the left steering knuckle, as this part seem to have a minute amount of play when I had the tire off on Saturday after a bout of noise. I am going to talk to my dealer again tomorrow to see what they think.

 

Craig: forgot to ask, but exactly what did your dealer tighten? At this point, need to check all possible causes. So far I have had the lower control arm (with the ball joint since it's part of the assembly) and the swaybar links changed, and the TSB 2301203 with the rivets to the upper strut area done.

 

Honestly drutkay, I don't know what they did. The weird thing about my car is - - is that I hear the rattling all the time, but I have been to the dealer 4 times for them to test drive the car and for some reason, it never makes the noise for them. They have checked the car over several times, and this last time when I had the oil changed, I mentioned all the possible issues that the different discussions on this forumhave raised. They claimed to have checked these out, including the TSB issues, and they haven't found the source of my rattling and noises.However, Idid not mentioned the bushings. I wish I was of more help, I am unfortuantely, not very maintenance savvy. Thank you for the detailed explanation of the bushings and stabilizers. I will of course mention this to them the nexttime I am at the dealer.

It seems that our problem is probably caused by many different little things, but at least, it seems like this is only a noise issue.