88,000 miles report
The break down list. At 13,386, popping noise when turning at low speeds: dealer unable to duplicate. At 19,885, popping noise when turning at low speeds from right tire area. Dealer could get the noise to happen best when starting out from stop in either direction when hitting the breaks hard. Inspected front end, front end tight. Took out chassis ears and found noise loudest when attached to strut. Rocked strut back and forth, strut making same noise. Ordered new strut and mount. When replacing strut noticed strut was loose in upper mount. Also noticed when disassembling that strut threads were cross threaded. Replaced right front strut and upper bearing plate. Strut is tight and no longer making noise. Verified on test drive. At 65,885, popping noise in passenger front and when backing up and turning at low speeds. Strut is starting to fail. Dealer replaced passenger front strut. Test drove vehicle noise is now gone. At 65,887, A rubbery tension or binding noise heard from passenger front wheel area. Dealer found upper strut mount is worn, causing it to turn inside upper strut housing causing a rubber grinding noise intermittently when turning. Complete upper strut mount. Test drove, no noise heard when turning. At 75,922, Different popping noise from passenger front wheel area but noise similar to strut failure. Sounds more like lower ball joint popping. Dealer notes as rattler or clunk noise for stabilizer bar end link recall. Dealer replaces item, test drove to verify, noise gone. At 84,869, rubber tension binding noise heard from right front. When turning to right at slow speeds. Dealer inspection found upper right strut mounts to be causing the noise. Dealer replaced upper strut mount. Additionally excessive road noise from passenger right front at highway speeds making a growling noise. Dealer found left front wheel bearing to have an internal worn bearings causing excessive noise. Bearings are worn due to lack of grease. Bearing did not press in correctly and tech was forced to destroy new bearing to get out. Due to incorrect bearing installation. ABS system light came on during test drive. Replaced with new bearing. At about 88,310, rubbery tension noise returns again from right passenger front and intermittently growling noise from front end at highway speeds. Also, random popping noise that sounds like strut failure again. Dealer so far has replaced passenger right hub bearing and customer has required steps to be taken to have engineer look at strut issue before car is returned. Dealer also claims they are unable to duplicate popping noise at this time.
I will update with more later but this could become a legal matter at this point. My service manager says he has checked with tech support and was told that this was the only car in the nation with the problem strut and mount. I asked service manager about a replacement car under lemon law and he stated that it only applies when under factory warranty not the extended that comes with car.
