I've had no problems with my neon until now. I bought it about 4 months ago, used. They replaced the spark plugs when I bought it.

When accelerating, my car has always been loud. I say it sounds like a "rice rocket". My friend, who also had a neon, said to tighten my motor mounts & it would reduce the noise. I never did it though.

The other day I noticed now when I'm accelerating from a stop, or trying to hurry & get on the freeway, the acceleration is LOUD, & deep sounding, as if it's really struggling to accelerate. The "rice rocket" noise is louder too since it's more deep. I've been looking up motor mounts, & when they're bad, & it mentions the vibrating. I think my car is vibrating, especially when the deep "rice rocket" noise, but it's not a noticeable SHAKING or anything.

Could one of my motor mounts be bad?? It shifts fine, no misfiring, starts up fine. Any help would be much appreciated. THANK YOU!

 

What is making it loud: The engine? The exhaust? What exactly does it sound like?

 

you can hear how loud the engine is, & the rattling of my dash.... the noise kind of fades in & out, too. this all comes from the engine...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeR0J5W6Ngo

 

Tightening the motor mounts would make the noise worse, if anything, if that would do anything besides stress the mount and bolt more than it should.

Does it have the factory muffler still?

A lot of noise and rattling can be created by a bad motor mount (the actual motor mount, not the torque struts), especially during acceleration. The overall loudness sounds like some sort of exhaust thing though...

 

I had that problem about a month ago. My engine sounded like a "ricer" and the sound adjusted with the acceleration. I got it fixed and it just started again. I have to go have it checked out tomorrow to see if it's the same thing.

 

Let me know what they say. I'm taking mine in on Thursday (after pay day).
I'm thinking there's a leak somewhere in the exhaust manifold/exhaust (loud engine exhaust/vibrating). Or it's one of the motor mounts. Or both.
Thanks!

 

The mounts they fixed were fine, but they said there is another mount near the transmission that they need to check. I don't have the cash right now. We'll see.

 

ya, that's way in the back too! good luck!

 

The transmission mount? Also, did they align the torque struts correctly? Seems most people, even shops, don't know about that.

 

my05 makes this noise, replaced upper and lower mounts plus new cat converter-still makes the noise.
ps engine just died, i suspect timing belt broken (95000 mi)