Update:
Okay so I found out that the tranny fluid I've been seeing on my driveway was power steering fluid. Topped off the PS fluid and I *thought* I noticed that the weird noise *seemed* to go away, but this morning I was driving my daughter to school and ended up having to take a big detour back home due to an accident During that time I noticed my car shuddering going from 0 through about 15 or so mph. When I say shuddering, I mean it felt like the car was losing traction or something. The roads were wet so I thought that's what was happening, but then it got worse and worse. Now it's a pretty harsh vibration/shudder and I don't want to drive it.
I popped the hood, thinking I'd try that FWD thing, but I thought that involved removing the fuse - right? Or am I wrong about that? Reason I ask is that there is no fuse there. In fact it almost looks like something melted there or some brownish gunk got in there or something.
Also, recently I noticed that when I'd put it in reverse to back into my driveway¹ it has been making a metallic "clank" noise. I thought it was the broken window regulator mechanism in the back, but then I noticed that it sounded more "outside" than inside. In fact it's seemed a tiny bit louder each time too.
This is my daily driver, so I'm freaking out a bit.
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¹ we back into our driveway (and parking spaces) because, face it, you're going to back up at some point during the parking/leaving process so it might as well be while you can see all the traffic coming in both directions. Plus if your battery ever goes dead or something like that, you're already facing outwards where someone can pull right up to you for a jump.
