With the scary season fast approaching, and the darker nights drawing in, it’s not unusual for everyday things to take on a slightly sinister edge - and the same is true for the occasional noises made by your salvage car. Now, if you’ve bought a used car from one of our salvage car auctions here at RAW2K, then you probably expect a certain degree of rumbling and grumbling every so often. But it’s understandable to get a little freaked out when you hear noises like…
Clicking or grinding
This is quite an important one right off the bat. If you hear clicking noises coming from somewhere, then there’s a decent chance that the noise could be caused by your brake pads wearing down, resulting in the noise occurring when you press on the brake pedal. Make sure to get that seen to as quickly as possible (or even fix it yourself, if you’ve got the skill), because that’s one problem that can easily lead to a devastating accident. If you’re hearing a loud grinding when you’re turning on the other hand - a noise like bone scraping against bone - then you might be running low on power steering fluid, as the issue’s caused by air bubbles becoming trapped within it. That’s another one to get sorted promptly, because as any vampire victim will be able to tell you, even the best of us can’t function properly unless we’ve got the right amount of fluid in our bodies.
Rear rattling
If the rear of your car is rattling like the heavy breaths of some unseen infernal hound, that could well be your car’s exhaust system. This consists of five separate components - the exhaust manifold, catalytic converter, resonators, muffler, and pipe. If any one of those comes loose, or stops functioning correctly for whatever reason, then that can end up causing a distinctive rattling noise.
Clanking
If you can hear a metallic clanking noise like the rattling of chains, clattering of pipes, or other things that go bump in the night, then it’s possible that you have an issue with your CV joints. These are on the end of your axles. If one of your CV joints fails completely, then in a nutshell, what’ll happen is that the wheel will simply stop turning. And we don’t need to tell you that’s not something you want happening at thirty miles an hour, never mind seventy.
Hissing
You’ll be glad to know that the hissing sound you’re hearing from your car is unlikely to be caused by a ravenous, venomous bundle of snakes and creepy-crawlies. However, you’ll probably be rather less glad to know that it’s more likely to be a leak in your cooling system, or in your vacuum line. That can cause a noticeable drop in your fuel efficiency, or an overheated engine. It can be especially worrying to hear a hissing noise once you’ve actually stopped the car, because it probably indicates that some kind of fluid is leaking down onto a heated engine component. By all means take it to a mechanic if that’s the kind of thing you’re not confident on handling yourself - especially since there’s a danger of scalding yourself if you’re not entirely sure what you’re doing.
Squealing
This can be one of the most unsettling noises to hear in the dead of night, whether it’s emanating from within your car, or from the eldritch chimera that’s RIGHT BEHIND YOU. We can’t help you on the chimera front, but if it’s from your car - and we hope for your sake that it is - then it could mean that your accessory belt is close to snapping. That’s if the noise is happening when it’s cruising though. If the squealing only happens when you apply the brakes, that’s probably a fairly good indication that it’s time to replace those, for the same reasons we detailed above. And if you’ve decided your car is making too many noises to be in any driveable condition - or if it’s simply freaking you out - then you’ll be glad to hear we’ve got a huge range of bargains available for you to choose from right here at RAW2K. We’ve got plenty of vehicles to choose from in our own online car auctions right here at RAW2K. Our auctions are refreshed on a daily and weekly basis, so there are always new deals to be had, from a range of leading manufacturers such as Peugeot, Ford and Toyota. Why not look around our site, and see what you can find?
