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Front End Rattle


nitrous1

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I've been searching for a front end rattle that developed shortly after I rebuilt my front end and replaced the struts with Arnott passive struts. I've prety much narrowed it down to the passenger front strut. I thought it might have been the strut mount, so I replaced it a few weeks ago, but that seemed to have no effect. After doing a liberal amount of bounce testing the past few weeks - I have come to the conclusion that one of my struts was bad pretty much from the day I put it in. I'm going to call Arnott today and see what they can do for me. All my paper work says the struts have a lifetime warranty, so I'm going to see how good that warranty really is.

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I'm interested in this one as well.... Up until about 6 weeks I had one of the first sets on front struts for a 97 STS. They didn't have the tapered receiver for the sway bar end link. I thought I had a bad strut because I had a clunking when accelerating. (As it turns out it was the sway bar end link moving around in the strut which pretty much destroyed the end link.) Anyways I called Arnott and explained the situation and ordered another set of front struts, again thinking the left front strut was bad. While I ordered the new struts I also ordered lower ball joints (GM), inner and outer tie rod ends (TRW I believe) upper strut mounts (GM) and Sway Bar bushings.

New struts arrive and I rip the front end off the car and replace all the above parts. Put the car back on the road and I be damned if I don't have a rattle sound coming from the front end when I go over medium to large sized bumps of which I didn't have before. I lift the car back up to make sure that something hasn't come loose... I check the strut to upper strut mount nut to be sure it's not loose, nothing is loose and it's coming from both the left and right on medium to larger bumps/holes.. etc. I keep thinking it's something other than the second set of new struts.... now I'm not so sure.

Not to nab your thread.... but Arnott did give me credit for the first set of struts which by the way looked to be leaking at the upper strut seals and they had essentially lost the gas charge as well. I know they have a life time warranty but if it is the struts this is the 2nd set in less that 15,000 miles... a little extreme I would think.

Dennis
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Update - I talked to Arnott yesterday and the lady I talked to was unable to retrieve my invoice info. They have changed computer systems recently and she was unable to locate my invoice. She took my name and number and someone else is supposed to call me back - but I haven't heard from them yet.

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I'm interested in this one as well.... Up until about 6 weeks I had one of the first sets on front struts for a 97 STS. They didn't have the tapered receiver for the sway bar end link. I thought I had a bad strut because I had a clunking when accelerating. (As it turns out it was the sway bar end link moving around in the strut which pretty much destroyed the end link.) Anyways I called Arnott and explained the situation and ordered another set of front struts, again thinking the left front strut was bad. While I ordered the new struts I also ordered lower ball joints (GM), inner and outer tie rod ends (TRW I believe) upper strut mounts (GM) and Sway Bar bushings.

New struts arrive and I rip the front end off the car and replace all the above parts. Put the car back on the road and I be damned if I don't have a rattle sound coming from the front end when I go over medium to large sized bumps of which I didn't have before. I lift the car back up to make sure that something hasn't come loose... I check the strut to upper strut mount nut to be sure it's not loose, nothing is loose and it's coming from both the left and right on medium to larger bumps/holes.. etc. I keep thinking it's something other than the second set of new struts.... now I'm not so sure.

Not to nab your thread.... but Arnott did give me credit for the first set of struts which by the way looked to be leaking at the upper strut seals and they had essentially lost the gas charge as well. I know they have a life time warranty but if it is the struts this is the 2nd set in less that 15,000 miles... a little extreme I would think.

I'm planning on getting rid of the car in the spring/early summer, I hope the next strut will last long enough. I really had high hopes for the Arnott kit when I bought it, but I've become a little less enthused as time as gone by. The driver side strut is nice and tight, but the passenger side had been problematic almost since it was installed. My biggest gripe however, is that neither strut had the correct mount for the sway bar link. I ended up welding a tapered socket in the existing hole in the strut. I probably should have bought real AC Delco struts for the car, but a new set of four was too much money to spend on 9-10 year old car IMHO.

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