Popping noise from front while turning

sunil6784

Member
Mar 31, 2005
620
0
18
Boston, MA
What a week...wrecked my daily driver because of the snow. No one's at fault, and the car didnt have collision on it. So i'm forced to put the mustang back on the road. It seems to be running right, I changed the oil and filter and fixed my EGR problems with a new valve. There is a popping noise coming from the front right while turning. It doesn't have to be rack to rack. Sometimes it will creek a little, sometimes it will pop. Any ideas what this could be? I know noises are hard to diagnose on the internet. Any help would be good. Thanks guys.
 
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My first guess is based on a similar situation I had. Mine happened to be the stabilizer bar bushings were junk and as the car would lean when going into a turn the bar would move and the bushing would bind and make a pop. Could also be a tie rod end or something like that also. Get under the car and check out those areas and see if anything is loose or has bad bushings.
 
If it's cold where you are at in Mass I would guess dry bushings that are cold and don't want to compress. But you really need to check the ball joints because they start to warn you just the way you are describing.
 
It does it in the summer as well. Also, i should have added, it is most audible when the car isn't moving. I'm not sure if it happens while the car is moving, I might just not be able to hear it over the exhaust.
 
My first checks would be the ball joints and outer and inner tie rod ends. Theyre the biggest safety issue whereas a dried out bushing is just annoying. Trust me, I had a ball joint blow out in my stang and it trashed my rim. And if it is a ball joint, dont listen to people that say you have to replace the whole control arm. Ford USED to do that but then they issued a TSB in the early
90s I believe it was stating that its not cost effective to replace the whole arm (duh!) and to start replacing just the ball joint.