clunking
 

while driving i hear a "clunking" under the front (mostly left side) every time i hit even a ripple in the road... the bigger the bump, the bigger the clunk. also, when i turn right into my driveway and hit the small bump at the beginning i get a loud "bang" almost like it's turning a direction it's not meant to. i'm looking at either struts, ball joints, or control arm bushings bad but i can't manage to re-create the noise even slightly when the car is off the ground. when i shake the wheel vertically there's no play... horizontally there's no play. this leads me to struts but at $700 for koni's (won't bother with oe) i don't wanna make the mistake of replacing and still having the noise.

any help or suggestions to confirm strut noise, etc would be helpful.

turn the wheel all the way to the right and look at the sway bar bushing in front of the A-arm, just at the frame rail - what you describe is exactly what mine sounded like when the bushing died - look carefully as mine was still there, but just in very bad shape.

I like Lee's idea. Our race threw one on the track in May. Made a similar noise but honestly it got me the best time of the day without it :D . Other thing I'd look at would be the strut mount. I wouldn't think it would be the strut itself that would cause that but nice try convincing yourself that you need Koni's.

haha! i'm going for koni's either way... just a matter of what's getting replaced first :D i pulled the strut out when i first found the clunking but the mount was in good shape (not even scratched, let alone worn or damaged anywhere). when i change the struts i will be changing the mounts just in case... i don't want to leave anything unrepaired to break later.

i'll check the sway bar bushings tomorrow. that's something i didn't even think about. i would assume i'm looking to see if they're torn, falling out, or just gone?

thanks for the help :)

well, i finally got the chance to look under it today and it was the sway bar bushing (or the fact that tere was no bushing left). thanks for the suggestion lee :)