Well tonight out of nowhere I started the car up started rolling forward and I hear this light metal on metal tinging almost going hand in hand with the tire rotation when just getting started.

I decide that I would check it out tomorrow but it looks like the problem just got worse from there. After driving around for a little while I found out that when I accelerate and when I am cruising at any speed under 60 the car is shaking. It is not unbearable but almost like I'm driving on a very rough road. The shifter also has the same vibration going through it as well. The vibration is so bad in the shifter that I cannot hold it when I'm cruising above 30.

When I got home I discovered that the tinging sound I heard happens whenever I switch gears and I can hear it very clearly when I'm stopped and just push the shifter from one to another. This type of sound I have never heard before and is very distinctive.

A little background note is that I have noticed that my clutch has started to slip lately. I have had two incidents where it slipped at 8K+ shifts but I've had no occurence at any other time.

I have a feeling that the problem has more to do with just the clutch wearing down but I'm not sure. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

I could use any ideas of what the cause of these problems are.

 

The vibration may well be caused by the driver's side inner CV joint. The surface that get the load during normal driving gets pitted, causing a vibration with the bearings in the joint. Mine was replaced under warranty but you can also just swap the left and right joints since that makes the surface originally used when in reverse to be used as the forward face. Just takes labor, no major parts...

 

jguerdat : Thanks. I hope it is the cv joint and I can just swap the two sides.

Does the sound through the transmission supposed to sound like a light metal on metal sound? It always sounded solid before with nothing sounding loose. This is part of the reason that I believe it is a transmission problem. The only thing is I've never heard of problems with the tranny on our S.

Is it possible that the vibration caused a problem in the tranny or vice versa?

I dropped off my S at Honda today so I hope they can take a look at it tomorrow.

 

If it's the CV joints, I doubt that it would cause transmission problems - it's just a heavy vibration (starts light and grows worse with more miles). I wouldn't call it a "light metal on metal" noise so maybe we are talking about different things...

 

No the light metal on metal noise that I hear comes from the tranny, as I've heard from outside the car. The vibration that I feel may very well be the cv joint because how you explain that is exactly what I was feeling. I was just wondering if it was possible for them to be interconnected.

Maybe my tranny just started making some sound at the same time out of coincidence.

 

If it's CV it'd go away when you coast, yes?

Give that a try... Mine shakes pretty bad like that up at 75mph... I had the wheels balanced (they were all ounces off) and it went away... It's back now though, hoping just one or more of the weights fell off the wheel.

 

allright well I just got a call from the shop. They told me that four of the six bolts that attach the driveshaft to the tranny were missing along with the washer. They're overnighting the parts and going to have my car ready for tomororow.

Has anyone heard of this happening before? This seems so strange.

 

Sounds like maybe someone had the drive shaft disconnected and failed to torque the bolts on reassembly. Did you buy your car used?

 

No I didn't but that's what the tech said also. About 3 years ago now I had my clutch replaced and that must've been the cause of the problem.