[tiv0]

About a week ago I was leaving for work and when I backed out of my garage I noticed this odd scraping/squealing noise as the car started moving backwards. I stopped, put the car in drive and didn't hear it as I moved forward. In the interests of time I drove to work and had no issues or other odd noises on my drive.

The next day I had a friend stand outside of the vehicle while I reversed to see if he could locate the sound. We found out it was coming from the center of the car, from the area right behind the transmission. My first though was that the heat shielding around the exhaust may have been rubbing on the driveshaft, but it still didn't make sense to me why I was only hearing it in reverse. So the next day I raised the car on a lift and stood underneath while someone else put it in reverse. I heard the noise but still couldn't tell what exactly was making the noise. A few of the more experienced techs in the shop (I work at a Nissan dealership) came over to help me diagnose, and their first though was that the center support bearing was going out. I started doing some research on failing center support bearings for driveshafts and wasn't satisfied with the results I was finding; my issue didn't seem to compare to any of them.

The last few days, I've been able to hear somewhat of a scraping/rattle when I'm in motion moving forward, at any speed, coming from the same general area. So I put the SVX up on the lift again today after work and removed the heat shield around the exhaust so I could really get a good look at everything driveshaft related. Now I can hear that the noise is not coming from the center support bearing at all, but rather the front half of the driveshaft itself; I don't mean the U-joints or where it connects to anything, I mean the actual shaft is making this noise.

I don't know much about the actual construction of driveshafts, or even if the SVX's is different from other subarus so I'm not sure what to suspect is making the noise. Does anyone have ANY ideas? This noise is going to drive me crazy.