I am getting an odd sound from my left rear wheel (06 MCS, 62k miles) when braking or cornering left at low speeds. It sounded at first like some of the plastic trim rubbing the tire, not a grinding sort of noise or anything like that. So I jacked up the car and looked for signs of rubbing - none.

I put the car back down and decided to motor around a bit to warm everything up in case that had anything to do with it (as of right now it seems to only happen when it's warm, but it's possible that it happens cold too and I just haven't noticed). After 30 minutes or so of spirited motoring, the noise came back. I went to a vacant church parking lot and drove circles in each direction at 10-15 mph and the noise only occurs when turning to the left. It also occurs slightly when braking, but mainly when turning left.

It may be important to note that my tire on that position (left rear) is also scalloped/cupped after only 15k miles on the tires. None of the other tires have this problem. Between the noise and the tire wear, I'm thinking I have some sort of problem with my suspension for that tire. I'm just wondering if any of you have had this problem and can offer any advice before I take her to my mechanic to have a look.

 

I was thinking the sound could be worn out rubber for your rear sway bar end link or a worn out sway bar bushing, not even sure if the noise is related to the tire problem or not. I had similar sounds in those instances and those were the issues each time.

Cupping usually happens when the tire "slaps" the pavement while on the highway instead of having constant contact with the roadway. Could be a worn out strut on that corner and poor alignment for the scalloping.

 

Hmm, thanks for the advice. I'll give my mechanic a call and talk it over with him, because I'm not sure how much this would take to fix, and being off at college it's kind of hard to find places to work on my car.

 

I looked up the suspension on RealOEM and found the part number for the bushing, but I'm not quite certain what you mean when you say the "rubber for my rear sway bar". Could you elaborate?

 

Rear sway bar bushing is a rubber sleeve inside a bracket.

But if you have an aftermarket rear bar, sometimes they have the ability to be lubed, and therefore could be dry.

When I had a noise back there, I checked the rubber parts of the end links and they "appeared" aok. Changed them anyways and the noise went away. That was at about 96K miles.