So I bought my first civic in September. Two weeks later I crash it to avoid some ahole who cut me off. Take it to the shop. both front upper control arms in the front and the rear passenger side upper control arm need replacing. Well As soon as I drive it off I immediately notice a nasty clunking sound on the drivers side wheel. The sound is noticable all the time but especially bad when slowing down and speeding up. I haven't taken it back into the mechanic simply because the guy doing my body work isn't done with it. I should have it this weekend.

So my question is what could it be? CV joint? Tie rod? Bushings? And if one of these is the culprit why didn't the damn mechanic find it when he replaced the control arms? I'm assuming whoever did it didn't take the time to check or something along those lines.

Personally I think it's the CV joint. I checked around and have some idea as to how to check to see if that is the problem but if it isn't are there ways to check everything else without having to take it to a mechanic? Keep in mind I've never done any suspension work before so I'm kind of a newb but if I can avoid paying through the nose to have a mechanic fix it I will. I just don't have the cabbage to send it back in right now. Any help or ideas would be awesome. Thanks!

 

Since you don't have it helping troubleshoot a "noise" is going to be difficult at best.

What I don't understand was, you drove it off and immediately noticed the noise, and you didn't turn right back around and get it checked out ON THE SPOT?

 

Well the biggest reasons I didn't bring it back on the spot were 1. The body guy said he needed it right away. As in he called me and as I was leaving and said bring it over now. 2. I knew I didn't have the money at the time to have anymore work done and 3. I didn't want to bring it back to that particular mechanic in the anyways.

So this weekend I'm gonna take a look at it and see what the problem is. Hopefully it's something I can do myself but who knows.

 

No comment.

 

If you paid someone to repair your car and it is not repaired they are legally obligated repair the car. I don't know all of the details, but I assume when you took the car to the shop you both agreed the car would be in working order when it left. Take it back to the shop once you get it, if he doesn't want to fix it take the shop owner to small claims court.

 

I hope it doesn't come to having to go to court. But in all honesty I should have just told the body guy to wait another couple days. Ah well live and learn. At the very least I will contact the place that did the work again(which I did do originally, and he agreed to look at it when I got it back) and have them take a look at it and tell me what's wrong. Up until this point they've done great work for me in the past.

I'm just praying it's something inexpensive. However I've learned that it's NEVER inexpensive.

 

Since you didn't return immediately you will be hard pressed to NOW prove that the clunking is coming from any work that they preformed. If you had made them fix it immediately you probably would not have had to pay for anything.

Better hope you can find and fix the issue yourself should they refuse to help you.