Please give my clip a listen and offer ideas if you can. This sound is quite evident coming from driver's front when rolling slowly in either forward or reverse, with clutch engaged or not. Brakes slightly engaged or not. Steering in any position. I do not hear it at anything beyond a dead slow parking lot speed and it seems to do it within a few seconds of starting to move, its typically 2-4 clanks and if I were to continue to slowly go across a parking lot the sound does not keep repeating. The car otherwise runs and feels great. Have had wheels off, tires changed, balanced, alignment checked etc, and the sound has not changed. Its relatively high mileage (175,000 km) but the tire/alignment shop says everything is tight and in-spec.

If it has relevance, it has Bilstein coil-overs and has been slightly lowered. I bought it this way 6 years ago, and do not remember any strange noise back when I purchased the vehicle.

 

Make sure the brake lines are attached to their brackets (10mm bolt) and not hanging down near the wheel. Could be one hanging and clanking against the wheel or one of the wheel weights. I have seen one do that and rub through on a guys track car!

check for a partially loose tape/glue weight on the inside of a wheel. Sounds like something hitting the barrel of the wheel and if they used a strip of tape weights and one is a bit loose, at low speeds it may be flopping as the wheel rolls around and clicking against the wheel. As you speed up centripetal force will make it hold against the wheel. Just a quick thing to check.

Could also be something inside the wheel (did you have tires replaced recently?)

Otherwise, make sure lugs are fully tightened and torqued and that there are no cracks in the wheels anywhere.

I mention all of the above because it sure sounds like the sound of something metal hitting the barrel of the wheel from the recording.

Could be a wheel bearing to but a bit off from what I typically hear when a wheel bearing is going so rule out the simple stuff first.

I assume you have checked and endlinks are all good and connected, no loose suspension that you can find?

 

I'd also double-check to be sure that the coilover assembly is tight. Maybe bounce up and down on the front and have someone inspect the struts and their attachment points.

Good luck finding the noise!

 

Thank you for the suggestions, I'll give it the once over this fall.

 

For closure on this, putting her away for winter I jacked her up, gave the wheel a spin and definitely could hear there was something inside the tire. I took the wheel/tire to the shop who supplied and mounted them. They told me they found a small piece of the tire mounting machine 'arm' inside the tire. They figure the working end of the arm caught the tire bead, tore the bead and broke off a piece off the arm. Since there was bead damage they got me a new tire and all at no cost. I guess my memory is failing me since I thought the noise also occurred before my new tires were installed.
Thanks to you who gave me some ideas.

 

Thanks for the update. Good thing that didn't damage the wheel too much. I'd check the air pressure on that tire, just to be sure.