Ford focus heavy banging front near side LOUD

[RickCov]

Hi,

I was just pulling onto a round about on a wet road, quickly enough to make the front wheels spin (accidentally). Immediately as I'm travelling round the roundabout I notice a loud banging noise from the near side front. I pulled over to investigate but can't see any damage or loose / detached parts.

I'm only a few minutes from home at this point so I slowly made my way home. The banging continued intermittently and I notice it sounds worse when any torque is applied to the front wheels, i.e while changing gear and accelerating, and reversing on my drive sounded like what I can only describe as steel toe cap boots in a tumble dryer! Any ideas?

Thanks in advance
Rick

[stevieturbo]

It does it all the time ? or only when in motion ?

Does the noise match road speed ? or engine speed ? Different in any gear ? reverse ?

[RickCov]

It's 90% of the time only in motion, not when stationary. I managed to drive home at 20mph with no knocking noise until I change speed, or change gear. It seems to be worse when I reversed up my drive which is a slight incline. I dare not go any faster than 20mph to find out if the noise matched the road speed.

[Monkeylegend]

Drive shaft coupling?

[Pothole]

Drop link?

[RickCov]

Thank you, my pal also said it could be drive shaft coupling but he's not sure as he's not a mechanic

Edited by RickCov on Monday 10th January 20:28

[E-bmw]

Wheel bearing collapsed, CV collapsed, it obviously needs to be looked at from underneath to diagnose properly, hopefully a closer look with the car on axle stands will find it easy enough.

[Monkeylegend]

Had similar symptoms on our Scenic when the cv joint gave up.

[RickCov]

Thanks everyone for the help, seems likely that it is the CV / Drive shaft. What's the repair bill likely to be if this is the case? I've just dropped it to the garage so I guess we will find out. Im expecting it to cost atleast £200

[Monkeylegend]

Our Scenic needed a new driveshaft, it was on back order and I had a quote for nearly £600. It was actually the abs ring broken but you had to buy the whole driveshaft.

This was March last year. Hopefully Ford will have better parts availability.

We ended up scrapping ours, it was only worth £200 ish which we got for scrap, not worth spending the money on it.

[RickCov]

Ouch! I hope I don't end up in the same boat. My focus is 10 years old. Probably worth £1,500 at best. It's been really reliable up until the past 3 months.