I have a 2007 Honda FRV with 62k miles and I've been trying to find out the cause of a noise that has been bugging me for some time now.
Whenever I go over slightly rough roads, there seems to be some sort of rattling sound coming from under the car, towards the front of the car. It's almost like something metallic is loose and tapping the chassis. Strangely, I don't seem to get the noise when I hit a pothole, although the car does feel a bit "crashy".
I've had the car checked by a local mechanic who couldn't see anything wrong with it so I changed a few parts myself in the hope that it would help or at least eliminate the possible causes. I've changed the shocks, shock mounts, bump stops, drop links, and ball joints, and have checked the anti-roll bar. When I had the clutch changed, the subframe had to be removed. One garage said it could be the subframe but the mechanic who did the clutch said that it can't be the subframe as you can't actually install it incorrectly. I went ahead and tightened the subframe nuts anyway but couldn't see anything wrong with it.
The only other thing I can think of is the lower control arm bushings, although they seem to be fine to me. My local mechanic thought the same.
Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas as to what it might be?
I wanted to take it to Honda to investigate the issue but they wanted almost £100 just to diagnose the issue which seems a bit steep and there is no guarantee they would find the issue.
Does anyone know of any good experienced garages/mechanics in North London that can help with something like this?
Many thanks!