GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

well, when i brought my car in last to have a noise looked at, it ended up being a dislodged exhaust hanger...well i had to drive someone to the denver airport and back (about 350 miles) and i finally got off the highway and when i got under 35 mph it started making this horrible grinding tinny noise, didnt matter what gear i was in and whenever i exceeded 35, it magically vanished...what the hell could this be, i swear i got the cursed vibe or something...i clanked the exhaust manifold heat shield to see if it was loose, that was a no...what else could it be? i really dont want to have to bring it into the dealership anymore, its starting to cost me...any thoughts or questions that would help me figure it out?

Quote, originally posted by wyatt89 » i swear i got the cursed vibe or something...I wouldn't say the Vibe was cursed...you did fly off the road with it ...I can pretty much guarantee that this won't be the last thing that is the result of doing that... Good Luck finding what it is. You'll probably have to bring it back to the dealer. You wanna play you gotta pay.

Good luck Wyatt, not sure what the sound is, I would have assumed a heat sheild, from what you typed...The only other thing I could think of (happend to me on my civic, not the flying part, but the noise) was the exhaust pipe itself got bent, so when I was at idle it would vibrate on my bumper. I had an Eclipse that the pipe would just slightly rest on the rear crossbar for the suspension, and that made noise too... So it could be exhaust related (not positive w/o seeing it myself) but maybe something to look into. I woud think that when they looked at it the first time they would have caught anything rubbing on anything else, but if they fixed the hangar, they might not have looked to see if it was rubbing on something after they fixed that....

maybe theres more exhaust hanger or just broken things in the exhaust

Would you be able to make an audio recording to post for us?

Quote, originally posted by BlueCrush »I wouldn't say the Vibe was cursed...you did fly off the road with it Yeah, what he said. Once Dirty Harry went airborne with a car it was pretty much totalled, certainly no longer his daily driver! Ask around for a referral to an independent shop that specializes in Toyotas. They are almost always less expensive than the dealer and usually more customer friendly. Other than warranty work I go exclusively to a local shop. Since the sound goes away at higher speed it is probably a vibration/resonating with something that else that is bent, but you should get it looked at.

update: the noise is only present when im going forward. i donno what that means....i first noticed it and i was wondering if it was just because i was going slow, oh no, i hit about 20 in reverse to make sure and it never made a sound...the dealer said it might be one of my brakes but i bring it in on friday...i wish we had more shops around here but this place is out in the boonies..

When the car landed you said it came down on the left side. I would check the bearings on that side. You can do it one of two ways to see. Get one of those stethascopes (sp) jack the car up and spin the wheel bearings with the stethascope on some of the fixed parts of the suspension. This can be a knuckle for the front or the axle for the rear close to the axle. You may have to spin the bearing fairly fast. The other way is if you have one of those infared thermometers you can use it to check the bearings. Take the car on a trip. 20-30 miles. Get the bearings up to temp. Once out imediately check the temperature. If the left is different from the right then the bearings may be bad. I have used this to check bearings on trailers and cars for a couple years. If the temperature is usually 10 celcius or about 15 F then usually the bearing has some damage. Just landing hard like that could have hurt the bearings but it sometimes takes time to notice the damage.