Hi,

I own a 2002 dodge neon (base) with 110,000 miles on it. I recently took my car snow drifting in a local mall parking lot. Later in the day after that, the rear of my neon started making horrible banging noise. It happens randomly, and it has a grinding, knocking, banging noise to it. I recently had the lower control arm replaced on one of the tires due to a towing gone bad (bent lower control arm).

I also want to add that there is a humming noise too now. The noise goes with how fast i'm going vs how much I push down on the throttle. The faster I go, the more high pitched of a whine it becomes.

Here's a video of the noise. At exactly one minute in, it sounds as if something just flung apart. My brakes work fine, although while this was going on, I could feel the banging as it was going on through my brake pedal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xiZ...ature=youtu.be

I'm going to get it looked at tomorrow, any guesses what it could be?

 

I can guess......don't drift.....also you don't replace a control arm on a tire. Sounds like the rear side you had issues with from the "bad towing" got magnified by the stupidity of "drifting". Sorry if you find this offensive. I have no tolerance for people who do stupid things with their vehicles and then complain when something happens.

 

I wrote this post late at night, so my mistake, I know that the control arm is not something you replace on a tire lol. And yes, "bad towing" because the tow truck driver bent my lower control arm.

Also, I'm not offended, however maybe you should reread my post because I'm not complaining. I went snow drifting, taxed my suspension (and car as a whole), and something broke. I took a video recording the noises I heard because I was curious to know what everyone else thought in case anyone else has had similar problems. If not, then when I hear back from my mechanic I can post what was wrong, so if anyone else has something like this happen, they'll know.

I'm not denying that mall drifting isn't bad for your car, but your salty response turns me away from these forums. It's not as if I was hitting my rev limiter whipping my car around a busy parking lot. I was learning how my car handles in the snow in my malls parking lot after they were closed, practicing over-correcting/under-correcting and especially recovering from fishtailing because my neon loves that.

Lastly, I want to mention that the side that is making the noise, is not the side the lower control arm was replaced on. It's on the opposite side.

 

I'm with you 5 double O2. Love to get my snow sense back in a big empty parking lot. Better than being surprised on the real road with other cars coming at you or explaining to the wife why your cat like driving reflexes has you upside down in the ditch.