[Vulgalour]

I just need to look for someone dressed as the Pope riding around in an R8, yes?

[RoverRevival]

[RoverRevival]

[Vulgalour]

As my gran would say: you daft ha'p'orth.

---

Trip to Maidstone cancelled this weekend. I got as far as Wetherby services (about 45 miles) and managed to convince myself the car was making a weird dudududu noise. Coupled with my anxiety being in overdrive for no reason I could fathom I decided to chat to Mike (who was back at home) and boyfriend I was going to be visiting this weekend to figure out what to do. Decided to hobble back home to investigate.

Here's where it gets a bit odd. We jacked it up and found a lot of play in the driver's side front wheel. Hub nut torques and any items that bolted to other bits of steering and suspension were checked because it didn't seem entirely right for a loose or damaged bearing. You can wobble the wheel top and bottom but not front and back but it moves the whole hub with the wheel. It also appears to move the driveshaft on the drivers side.

The problem only became apparent when I got to an indicated 60mph and got worse the faster I went, so I kept the speed down to an indicated 55mph where the car was happy to trundle. We had noticed an unidentifiable minor vagueness in the centre of the steering for a little while but never been able to pin it down. It seems the motorway run today has caused whatever the problem is to get worse. The car is still perfectly fine at round town speeds but I shan't risk it on the motorway until I know what's amiss.

Oh, and I'm aware of the date. This isn't a wind-up, it actually happened.

Current theory is that the driveshaft has worked itself loose recently, possibly a worn fixing somewhere. When my headspace has sorted itself out we'll get it into the unit and pull things apart to see if we can resolve this. Bit of an odd one this as I'm not really sure how it's happened, the car has done a couple of thousand miles since the driveshafts were out of the gearbox and no issue was highlighted at the MoT a couple of days ago.

[RoverRevival]

stupid question first, you have had the tyres balanced recently?

if the drive shaft had released it self, you would know about it

hub nuts should be 185nm

its sounding more and more like bearings to me.

[RoverRevival]

http://www.eurocarparts.com/wheel-bearing-and-wheel-hub

[Vulgalour]

Think it's time to use the ECP trade account!

[gbs100]

I would check your wheel nuts are tight.

[Vulgalour]

We have checked and found to be tight:
wheel nuts
driveshaft end nuts
lower ball joint nuts
track rod end nuts
strut top nuts
strut bottom clamp nut

It's looking more likely it's failure of the brand new ball joints or an unseated driveshaft. It could be the bearing but that seems less likely now as the movement doesn't appear to be in that area. Additionally, none of the noises you would expect with a failing or failed wheel bearing are present. The same noises and play I've described have been confirmed by someone else as being an incorrectly seated driveshaft on their Mondeo, admittedly not the same car but this sort of problem will be similar whatever the front wheel drive vehicle.

I was going to the unit today to inspect further but there's no space indoors. It's chucking it down here and I haven't the patience to do it out doors and the garage is too narrow for me to work in. It'll just have to wait for the time being, I'm not ordering any parts until I know for definite what's wrong.

[gbs100]

I have a spare pair of drive shafts you can have.