Howdy,

During the last week or so, I noticed my car started making a new noise.
I've noticed it in 2 specific circumstances: when I pull out of the
parking lot behind my apartment, and when I pull into/out of the parking
lot where I work. In both cases it is a 90 degree entrance and not a
smooth transition of pavement. One entrance is an incline and the other
has a "U" shaped cement rain gutter right at the entrance. Regular pot
holes and bumps hit straight on don't seem to cause any noise, only when
I am turning, in this case into or out of parking lots. Today I moved
everything from the back of the car (spare tire, parcel shelf, jack,
etc) into the back seat and checked over the hatch fixtures and bounced
the car up and down to make sure it wasn't something obvious. Didn't
make a difference. I read on one of the saab sites that the trailing
arm bushings sometimes shift, so the other day I took a look under the
car for anything obvious and didn't see anything. I did notice that one
of the bushings (what I am assuming to be the bushings) had some
cracking on the visible part. Any one have any experience with this?

On an unrelated question, when checking the oil level, is the engine
supposed to be on or off?


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S R Sharp wrote:

What kind of noise is it? Knocking? Bumping? Grinding?

<snip>

Off.

The oil should be checked around five minutes after switching a warm
engine off.

Paul Halliday wrote:
I'm gonna have to go with a bumping noise. Everytime I hear it the
first thing that pops into my mind is the hatch isn't closed all the
way. I doubt it's the suspension bottoming out, as it happens at low
speeds.


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S R Sharp wrote:

Actually, it generally quite likely that you'll hear the suspension bottom out at low
speeds since you're only likely to negotiate the kind of bumps necessary to do that at
low speeds. How are the shock absorbers or do you call them dampers ?


Graham

Pooh Bear wrote:

Look at your mud flaps - do you see wear on the bottom? Don't forget to
check the mud flaps under the middle of the car.