Ok, so I replaced my upper, lower and tranny (driver side, under battery plate) motor mount today due to deep thumps and thuds when going over bumps at ~15mph. Needless to say the upper was definitely bad, nowhere near as bad as the lower (literally was able to push the metal piece that the bolt goes through right out once I got it off) as well as doing the driver-side mount (AutoZone calls it the tranny to engine mount apparently) and now it seems like the deep thud/thump is gone but AT IDLE, which I never had a complaint about before, the grill on the driver-side shakes like a bastard, as well as in D, at idle, depending on the position of the steering wheel that vibrates and shakes like a bastard. Almost as if I let it sit like that for too long something in the steering column will vibrate loose.

I don't know if having the shop bump up my idle would be the right way to go about it, but yea it does seem like they idle real low considering if I turn the wheel all the way to the left the shaking gets almost unbearable, as if I feel like I kept it there the engine would fall through and/or possible stall. Basically just gets really rough.

Now, I did just pull up a quick search on here and it looks like most motor mounts (well, the tranny-side one seems to definitely be the culprit in my case) from AutoZone (US) seem to be a big problem? Should have done a search before buying it because eating $108 with no way to remedy the problem outside of having the shop buy a (Mopar?) mount would suck. AFAIK, AutoZone will only return parts if not installed.

Honestly though, the crazy *** vibrating in the grill wouldn't bother me (it's literally the plastic, the radiator, air filter housing, nothing really seemed to be going crazy, putting some pressure on the grill made it stop completely. I could come up with SOMETHING to make that stump but as I said that doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as leaving it go and having the steering wheel or linkage or SOMETHING in there vibrate loose.

Would it be a bad idea to have a mechanic up the idle a bit to alleviate the problem compared to eating $35+35+108 that I spent on the 3 mounts? :-/

 

I'm thinking somebody should start an end all be all engine vibration thread. Seems like one of the most common things discussed on here.
I see you did a search on here and I'm sure you found a lot of references to the torque strut alignment procedure, so I'm assuming you've already checked that?
If both of your torque struts were bad, there's a good chance that your front engine mount is bad. Some people call it the right side motor mount. It's the engine mount on the passenger side, sort of in between the 2 torque struts. The OEM front engine mount is hydraulic, (filled with fluid) to dampen vibration and if the rubber gets torn and the fluid leaks out, it can cause problems.
The idle is set at the factory, but there is an adjustment screw. The problem with that is, if you adjust the screw the ECM will eventually put the idle right back where it was.

 

Thanks for the reply, I didn't adjust (nor measure) the distance to make sure it was 119mm but if I replaced the top on Saturday and it got rid of the crazy thumps on bumps and the insane vibration just started after I replaced the lower (which the actual rubber was literally destroyed) and driver-side mount do you think a simple measurement fix would cause that?

The cars in the shop now for a bearing on the driver-side (which was bad before I replaced the mounts) and he said all the motor mounts looked good, although there's no way he ripped the air box off, battery, battery tray, battery tray mount and the actual engine mount (as that's the ONLY way you can even see the mount itself) in the time-frame it took him to tell me they were all good.

Needless to say I did just call a Dodge dealer and he pretty much flat out said "let me guess you bought AM mounts?" so it's definitely an issue with a great deal of cars?

He was pretty bad at explaining what the mounts looked like but he was actually quoting me $5 cheaper than the AM mount which I thought was rather odd considering the lower OEM mount was 3x the price of the AM one. I'm kinda like "wait and see if the hard rubber breaks in a little and hope the vibration doesn't drive any nuts and bolts loose, let alone the steering wheel" or "screw it all and just have them put OEM mounts on and go from there". I just know that as much as the OEM mounts would probably fix the crazy vibrations it's like if they don't I just ate another $200 or so on the parts let alone labor and it's not like I can say "take them all off, put the old ones back on I'm not paying for something that didn't fix the problem".

 

[QUOTE=alturic;3135983]Thanks for the reply, I didn't adjust (nor measure) the distance to make sure it was 119mm but if I replaced the top on Saturday and it got rid of the crazy thumps on bumps and the insane vibration just started after I replaced the lower (which the actual rubber was literally destroyed) and driver-side mount do you think a simple measurement fix would cause that?

That's a good question and to be honest, I can't answer it. I've done mounts and torque struts on a few Neons and I've always followed the steps as they are in the manual, so I can't really say what the symptoms would be if they weren't aligned. However; there must be a good reason why they have the alignment procedure in the manual.

I've never heard of AM mounts. The ones I had problems with and refuse to ever use again were Anchor mounts. I put brand new Anchor torque struts on a car and it vibrated so bad, I took them off, threw them in the trash and put a good set of used OEM's on. The wife's car had a bad front mount (the one in the sub-frame) and being cheap as usual, I decided to buy an Anchor mount. Big mistake. The car vibrated like crazy, not so much at idle, but while driving. So....I ended up doing that PITA job all over again and put a good OEM mount in. I have no idea how much the OEM mounts cost. I try to not go to the dealer unless I really have to. I'm fortunate to have a Pick N Pull not too far away. They have a steady turn over of cars and every time I go there I walk the Chrysler rows and look for good OEM torque struts. I've been lucky a couple of times finding cars with the engine already removed and good front mounts just sitting there waiting to be removed.

Does your car have a tach? If it does, what is your idle speed?

 

Well, when I say "AM mounts" I do mean the Anchor ones, and that's pretty much the majority of the ones I seem to see people bitching about.

As for the "good reason" for the alignment of them, do you have any idea on what this little 2 star-screw aluminum piece is even for? No-one seems to know. It's on the Upper mount only... the actual AM mount didn't come with it, I just swapped it from the old Upper: The really strange thing is that the new AM lower mount doesn't come with that same aluminum piece but has the two screw holes for it and the OEM one doesn't have a piece there let alone holes to screw it in.

I suppose I could go looking when spring finally breaks at the picker places around here but unless someone removed the battery tray and everything the top-left mount in that picture is the only driver-side mount and with the vibrations being crazy after installing that one and the lower (bottom-right in that same picture) I ASSUME it's due to the drive-side mount.

Yes, have a tach, at idle (from cold start) 1k rpm, no vibration. After the car has "warmed up" for a few minutes, idle drops to 600-700, and then obviously when I turn the wheel full left or right it dips a tad and vibration was crazy.

Either way, to keep it short it SEEMS like the vibration might be easing away as I haven't heard it THAT BAD today, nowhere near last night. I hope the rubber just needed to break-in/settle/whatever. :-/

 

The problem is that once they start vibrating badly, there has not been a definitive fix for it. Some cars start vibrating and people notice the mounts are bad because they are looking for the cause. They replace the bad mounts and if those really are the sole source of the problem, it fixes it. The [bigger] problem is that a good amount of the time, the mounts are just a part of the problem and the new mounts lessen the vibration. I had new mounts and had my PCM updated to the latest version (which was supposed to remedy low-idle problems), and it still vibrated. Granted, I had motor mount inserts in, but I'd have been surprised if the vibrations would have stopped even if I took them out. It's certainly possible, but how bad it was at times...I don't know.

 

See, my problem was somewhat the opposite. There was never any vibration or anything prior to replacing the (presumably one of these two considering I did the upper a day earlier and everything was smooth as can be regarding deep thumps/thuds when hitting bumps under 15mph) lower/driver-side mount. It was only once I put the lower and driver-side mount in did the vibrations came. I'm sure if you've done it before you know it sounds like you should shut the car off immediately because it sounds like something in the engine compartment was going to vibrate apart. I just thought it was so strange that while the plastic portion of the drive-side grill and steering wheel was going nuts, the air box, battery, motor, pretty much anything I touched in the compartment didn't seem to have any sort of movement to it. As I said it SEEMS so far like a day of driving made everything "settle in" as there's been no violent grill/steering wheel vibrations. I just hope they continue to settle in and all is well.

The only reason I knew to replace that was a.) visual inspection, b.) the car was having some deep thuds and thumps over bumps and c.) it was the easiest (until I started digging into the driver-side mount anyway lol) fix since outside of a driver-side control arm bushing being visibly ripped I couldn't find any other parts that were loose or made any noise by me moving them.

Either way, keeping fingers crossed these mounts keep breaking-in.

I do understand that the rubber on these Anchor mounts (can't really tell what brand the driver-side one is since it pretty much was in a plain white box iirc) look BLACK while the OEM ones looked like a dark, dark gray and they simply look really rigid. Never played with motor mounts before to know if they should be rigid as hell or have SOME wiggle to them with hand pressure.

 

Well, people do get vibrations after changing the mounts too. However, they usually only seem to start when aftermarket mounts are installed. There are a couple of posts on this site where people took the aftermarket mounts out and installed factory mounts and they had no more vibrations. Some did the same, but still had vibrations.

 

Hey guys, quick question... when doing the strut alignment procedure am I going to have to take the battery & tray out so I can loosen the tranny side mount?

Am I going to have to loosen the middle (you know, the pita one, which I didn't replace btw :P) mount as well or literally just the upper and lower?

 

No, you don't have to mess with those mounts at all. You only have to loosen the torque strut bolts.