At around 45K miles I was in a hard 45MPH right hand turn and out of nowhere, a loud "playing card in the spokes" sound came from the rear end. I pulled over and stopped. I rentered the road and never heard this sound again. I noticed after that and for the last 50k miles when in a tight turn, like pulling in and out of the driveway, a rubbery rubbing sound(warp warp warp) and almost acts like the rearend may be "spooled". The rear rotors became very warped in the last 10k so changed out pads, rotors, and calipers. After the brake change I'm hearing an almost "metal rubbing a slightly warped rotor sound" and it has decreased lately after about 50 miles. It is almost gone exept in a left turn(loudest) and in a right turn. The groaning sound has quit as far as I can tell. Possibly an axle bearing? I had to knock off the rotors with a hammer, could this have damaged the rearend or bearings? If I pull the pumpkin cover(afraid to look)what type of fluids do I replace after inspection?

 

I had the warp warp warp noise in my 02. It got pretty annoying. After the shop changed my pinion seal it stop. I assume you have the limited slip diff? Sounds like the clutches chattering. The earlier 3rd gens are bad for the l/s clutch clips to fall out and cause the clutches to get out of line. Worse case is that after they fall the get sucked into the gears and tear up everything and metal gets in all the bearings.

I would pull your cover and take pictures and see whats going on.

 

Yep, limited slip rear, going to pull the cover and take a look see.