Help,
I have a 1995 Honda Accord with 200,000 miles ( just getting broke in ) the car makes alot of noise that appears to be coming from the front end of the car.The noise is a bad rattle when i hit bumps, at first i thought it was probably bad struts ? I have also noticed that it will make the rattling noise when on a fairly smooth section of the road when i depress the gas pedal and with the extra load/ rpm's it also seems to rattle for a few seconds.I jacked up the car on both sides and tried to check for slop in the ball joints by moving the tires up / down and side to side.I really didn't seem to feel much slop when pulling at 6 and 12 o'clock positions.When i pulled at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions i was able to move the tires just a little bit, but it appeared that the steering tie rod? rack and pinion assemly was what was really moving? I am able to move the cv joint drive shafts up and down a little bit, and i also noticed that next to the inner cv joint was a round steel hub that i can move up and down slightly and when i do,it hits the shaft going through it and i hear what may be the cause of the noise? is it possible that when the car hits bumps in the road or when i excellerate the car under load that the transaxle is flopping up and down enough to cause this low pitched rattle? The only other thing that i noticed while looking at the car was that the passenger side shock/ strut appears to be weaker that the drivers side as i can push the fender down easier on this side and get the car to boune a little bit more than thye drivers side.could the rattle be a bad strut or some kind of work out internal part or vibration isolation pad in the strut tower? Please let me know what you guys think my problem may be.Any ideas how much repairs would be at a garage
Many Thanks !!!!!

 

Probably not your CV axles. There will be a little bit of movement, that's normal. Besides, when you jack up the car, the inner cv joints are going to sit in a whole new spot, not the track they may have worn on the inside of the joint due to many miles driven. Unless they're cheap rebuilds, or the boots are split open, the axles are good.

Check your front coil springs very carefully, especially at the bottom end, for cracks. Broken front springs are very common on Accord, though usually on driver's side.

Also check out your sway bar connections to the links and their connection to the lower control arms.

When you check for tie rod play, feel for movement, but also look for movement between parts. You will be able to move the whole assembly (like the car is steering) but what you're checking for is play between one part and another.