This is a guide to help eliminate most of those annoying road noises as you drive down the highway or road.
Clunking, rattles, wind and groaning are all examples of those annoying little noises we all tend to live with when driving a car or truck, to an extent.
When the noise gets so bad that you want to pull your hair out and the radio won't go any higher to cover it, it's time to look into getting rid of or lessening it.
There is no possible way to eliminate 100% of road noise, that is, until someone discovers a way to levitate our vehicles off the ground.
Road noise, or environmental noise, is one of the hardest and most frustrating things to be diagnosed since it only occurs while the car or truck is driving at 55+ mph down the road.
The first step in ridding ourselves of noise is to figure out what kind of noise are we looking for.
Is it a clunk, like a hammer hitting a solid piece of metal?
Is it a rattle, like two small pieces of tin lightly touching each other?
Is it wind coming from some undetectable place on the far side of the car?
Is it a groan that gets more intense with the higher speed of the car?
Finding a hard hitting clunk can be difficult because you can't physically see the part when it's doing it's clunking.
An easy way to narrow down the defect is to drive along a road that has many potholes or manhole covers.
Drive the car over these holes with only one set of tires at a time (only the left tires, or only the right tires).
If the sound is more prevalent on the left side, does the sound happen more when the front tire hits or the rear. The same applies for the right side.
If there are sidewalk curbs along the road, roll the windows down. The echo coming back can amplify the sound.
This narrows the sound down to the specific corner of the car and from there it's a matter of using a long bar and prying on various pieces to see if they move.
A rattle is a little more difficult because even the smallest, least detectable movement can create some horrendous sound.
One thing to note is if the rattle is coming from inside or outside the car. Many rattles come from interior pieces that sound acoustically like they're coming from the outside.
Apply the same manhole/pothole maneuver as with finding a clunk.
If that doesn't reveal the sound you can try to "power brake" the engine (with an automatic transmission) to see if it's recreated.
To "power brake", make sure the car is secure - as in, it's not going to go anywhere or fall off a jack - and place your foot on the brake pedal, hard.
Put the car into gear (reverse or drive) and lightly push the gas pedal. An assistant can help by walking around the car (BUT NOT GETTING UNDER IT!) to hone in on the source of the noise.
If light pressure doesn't reproduce the noise, then try a small amount more gas pedal pressure.
Exterior rattles are usually caused by loose heat shields around the exhaust. These are easily removed and can be discarded as long as they aren't protecting the gas tank.
Never power brake a car for too long or with too much gas pedal applied. The results could vary from burning up and destroying the transmission to having the brakes fail and the car skyrocketing unexpectedly.
Wind noises take a lot of driving time, patience, some gawking from others, and masking tape.
If you've determined the noise to be coming from the passenger side of the car, your job is halfway done. So, let's say it is coming from over there.
Take a roll of masking tape, usually used by auto body repair guys, and tape off all nooks and crannies of the passenger side. This includes taping the window edge, all the way around the door seam, around the windshield, the rear window, the trunk and the hood to fender line.
Take the car for a ride.
If the sound is gone then you've covered the leak up during your taping process. If not, then get the tape back out and start adding to anything you suspect or may have missed the first time.
When the leak is determined to be fixed by the tape, pull over.
Remove the tape from the hood only. Continue driving.
If the sound is still gone, pull over again and remove a piece of tape from the door seam. Only small chucks of 6 inches to a foot at a time.
Continue this driving and tape removing routine until the sound comes back. The last piece of tape removed is where your leak is. Apply any repair necessary.
Groaning can be one of a few things. Groans will usually accompany wheel speed and only appear at higher speeds unless something is drastically about to fail.
Most people don't realize that tires make noise as they roll down the asphalt. Tires are a common item that no one pays any attention to unless it's flat.
Aside from the aggressiveness built into mud or snow tires, a tire will make noise as they wear from misalignment or lack of rotation.
The easiest thing to do first is to rotate the tires and see if the noise follows them.
If not, the other most common perpetrator of groaning is a wheel bearing.
Driving down the road, swerve the car/truck back and forth from left to right - preferably in an unpopulated area and where no cops will be around to pull you over for possible DUI.
Does the noise get louder during the left or right swerve?
When swerving, the weight of the vehicle gets shifted from side to side. The more weight a grumbling bearing has to endure, the louder it will complain.
Sometimes, though, a bearing can be determined bad by lifting the tires off the ground and, placing your hands at 12 and 6 o'clock, rock the wheel to see if it moves. Not all noisy bearings are loose, however.
This should take care of most road noises that can be handled or diagnosed by the average person. Any major repairs should be handled by a professional.
