Car is a 1998 Honda Civic LX. Has about 240K km or 150K miles. Manual transmission.

It's my daily driver and I'm debating if it's worth keeping or not. On the whole it's not an awful car but recently there's been two things with it that have been worrying me:

- When braking I hear a knocking noise. Only if I press the brake pedal. As soon as I release it it disappears. Also don't hear it under hard braking. What could that be?

- Once I'm in gear and start rolling, (I'd say under 2K rpm but no tach to be accurate) the car makes a metallic noise like metal touching, a sort of grinching noise or a lose heat shield. Noise comes right where the transmission is. I checked the heat shields, exhaust line and anything else for the noise and nada… leads me to believe it's the transmission grinching. Never had it happen to me before though so I'm not 100% sure. What do you guys think?

That's about it. Winter is starting and heating doesn't seem awfully strong but it works.

It runs as is but I found a good deal on another car. I was hoping to pass this one down to my little brother next year though. Basically wondering if these problems could just blow up on me and leave me without a car (such as the tranny).

 

You need to isolate the noise. Which side do you hear the knocking sound? Same side as the grinding sound? Have you checked the CV joint/shaft going into the transaxle?

 

The knocking comes from the front. If I had to guess I'd say driver's side (as this is where I can hear it best.. but also where I'm seated). I checked the CV joint and it looks fine. No rip or anything. Unless I'm supposed to look for something else?

They're two seperate issues. The grinding noise comes from right under the car around where the transmission is located.

 

How are your brake pads? Is the disk warped, or excessively worn? How about the caliper pins, are they sticking? Also, can you take a video of the noise on the front end and the tranny with audio? Maybe SECURELY jack up/support the front end of your vehicle and have an assistant take the video while you sit in the cab making sure the vehicle is controlled - make sure nothing in your way if the jacks slip...

Does the car make noise when in idle, or not moving but changing through the gears?