Diagnose my Accord over the internet?

[ff]

2017 Accord Sport, 14K miles

Hearing a distinctly metallic scraping sound coming from the front end, which speeds up and slows down with the speed of the car. It's easily reproducible and more of a "chhhhh chhhhh chhhhh" sound than a constant noise. The sound does not change when applying the brakes. Can be heard almost immediately after taking off, and audible up to the point where the road noise overpowers it. The kids had even commented on it from the back seats, asking what that scraping noise is.

I had both front wheels off, and:
- Inner and outer brake pads are all practically still new
- No evidence of rubbing anywhere in the wheel wells
- Rotor heat shields are all clear of the rotors
- Couldn't reproduce the sound while manually turning the hubs by hand
- Tire PSI at the recommended 32 PSI

Took it to the dealer today, and they had it for about 1.5 hours. Service mgr then asks me to go on a ride with the tech because "he couldn't reproduce the noise". (famous story, right?) Sure enough, the noise is completely gone, as far as I can tell. I asked him repeatedly what he fixed/changed, and he claims "nothing" every time.

So, OK, as long as it's not making the noise anymore, then whatever. As I'm driving back to work, it's obvious that the tires are now over-inflated because the steering is unusually light and sharp, and the car is riding very firm. I'll adjust the pressure back to normal when I get home, and see if the noise returns.

I've never heard of tires making that sort of noise, but based upon this and some random comments I've been reading on the internet, it seems like a strong possibility. Does that make sense?

[3LOU5]

Originally Posted by ff

2017 Accord Sport, 14K miles

Hearing a distinctly metallic scraping sound coming from the front end, which speeds up and slows down with the speed of the car. It's easily reproducible and more of a "chhhhh chhhhh chhhhh" sound than a constant noise. The sound does not change when applying the brakes. Can be heard almost immediately after taking off, and audible up to the point where the road noise overpowers it. The kids had even commented on it from the back seats, asking what that scraping noise is.

I had both front wheels off, and:
- Inner and outer brake pads are all practically still new
- No evidence of rubbing anywhere in the wheel wells
- Rotor heat shields are all clear of the rotors
- Couldn't reproduce the sound while manually turning the hubs by hand
- Tire PSI at the recommended 32 PSI

Took it to the dealer today, and they had it for about 1.5 hours. Service mgr then asks me to go on a ride with the tech because "he couldn't reproduce the noise". (famous story, right?) Sure enough, the noise is completely gone, as far as I can tell. I asked him repeatedly what he fixed/changed, and he claims "nothing" every time.

So, OK, as long as it's not making the noise anymore, then whatever. As I'm driving back to work, it's obvious that the tires are now over-inflated because the steering is unusually light and sharp, and the car is riding very firm. I'll adjust the pressure back to normal when I get home, and see if the noise returns.

I've never heard of tires making that sort of noise, but based upon this and some random comments I've been reading on the internet, it seems like a strong possibility. Does that make sense?

I never knew you had an Accord Sport.

We were actually thinking about getting one before we decided we just had to have another minivan and got the Sienna SE. How do you like it ??

Btw, no idea about the noise. I was thinking brake rotor shield....

[equ]

No pebbles stuck behind the rotors?

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[ff]

Originally Posted by 3LOU5

I never knew you had an Accord Sport.

We were actually thinking about getting one before we decided we just had to have another minivan and got the Sienna SE. How do you like it ??

I like it really well. I think it's a staggeringly good full size car for $24K. For my price range, and what I need out of an efficient family hauler, there is no better option that I know of.

Originally Posted by equ

No pebbles stuck behind the rotors?

Nope. That's the second thing I checked, right after verifying that the brake pads were still good.

[JST]

Originally Posted by equ

No pebbles stuck behind the rotors?

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Yeah, that would be my guess, too--that's the kind of noise you can get from a rock or even a stick stuck in the heat shield. Maybe it was something you missed when you had the wheel off and it just got knocked loose?

[Josh (PA)]

would it be a wheel bearing starting to go? Maybe when it was on a lift, or being horsed around taking the wheels off/back on it quieted down?

The only other thought I had is our 2007 Acura MDX had a really annoying 'feature' where when the pads were near the wear limits, a metal spring would ride against the brake rotors creating a metal on metal grinding noise. I assume this was to scare the normal Honda owner into rushing to the dealer and addressing. This noise would quiet when you actuated the brakes, and return when you lifted off them (very counter intuitive). Perhaps they still have this and one of your was displaced?

[John V]

Wheel bearings don't get loud and then get quiet. They get loud, then they get louder.

My guess is something got wedged in between one of the front CVs and the inner spindle and it eventually worked its way out. Maybe when you had the car up in the air with the suspension at full droop the debris moved to a location where it wasn't contacting anything on rotation.

Either way if it's gone I wouldn't worry about it.

Regarding the brake pad "spring," that's called a wear indicator, and they used to be very common. Now most cars seem to have electronic wear sensors instead. The purpose of the wear indicator was to make an annoying noise so you'd replace your pads before you had no brakes left at all.

[bren]

Rock in the tire. Didn't Clyde have this very issue not long ago?

[ff]

Originally Posted by Josh (PA)

would it be a wheel bearing starting to go? Maybe when it was on a lift, or being horsed around taking the wheels off/back on it quieted down?

The service mgr initially thought wheel bearing too, but I'm pretty sure that the noise wouldn't suddenly go away if one of these were bad. I think that it would get louder and "screechier".

The tech did say that he had it on the lift trying to reproduce the sound, which obviously would've completely unloaded the suspension. There may be something to that.

Originally Posted by John V

My guess is something got wedged in between one of the front CVs and the inner spindle and it eventually worked its way out. Maybe when you had the car up in the air with the suspension at full droop the debris moved to a location where it wasn't contacting anything on rotation.

My money's actually on this theory. I tried to peek in there when the wheels were off, and couldn't really see anything. It would be a lot easier while on a lift.

Originally Posted by bren

Rock in the tire. Didn't Clyde have this very issue not long ago?

The chh-chh-chh noise is too rapid at slow speeds to be a single rock. It would be easy enough to clean out the treads, though, and rule out the possibility.


I went out again over my lunch, and the noise returned, of course. But I did notice that the noise went away after ~7 miles of driving. So it's possible that it's only happening when cold, and I hadn't paid close enough attention before. That sort of makes me think that it's not the tires.

[clyde]

Originally Posted by bren

Rock in the tire. Didn't Clyde have this very issue not long ago?

I did?