2002 Protege5 Auto Tran Chirp

[acsipresident]

Three years ago I purchased a 2002 Protege 5 for my son. One year later we noticed a very slight "chirp" coming from the front end (drivers side). When the vehicle made the noise, the car studdered a bit as if the brake caliper was sticking. The chirping seems to occur when you've slowed down, turning to the left and slowly accelerating. My driveway is such a place where you need to turn left into a pretty good upward slope. I know it is not the brake caliper because this will occur if you don't apply the brake to slow down. It feels like the tranny is slipping for a moment when the chirp is heard. One other noticable item is that if you shift the auto transmission manually, this does not occur.

Has anyone run into something like this before or have any suggestions what I can do BEFORE racing off to the dealer.

[pincheyloveclaw]

I've never heard of anything like that from a transmission, but I would suspect the something to do with drive axle or CV joint pushed in too tight. It may have enough room to clear when coasting but under load it would try and straighten out which could take up the slop-especially if bearings start getting sloppy. how are those boots? Also look for things in the drivetrain/brake areas that are bent or dammaged or have wierd debris lodged in them. I once got a pebble in the front dust seal and you would've thought the wheel was about to fall off it was so loud.

[acsipresident]

Interesting insight. I had the CV joints and bearings replaced on both sides a little over 1 year ago. The dealership pressed one side in such that it was not properly aligned causing a wheel wobble. They tried to tell me that we must have hit something to cause this (rather than accepting responsibility) at which point I said "lets talk to a qualified mechanic and see if it is possible to hit something hard enough to do this". The guy quieted down pretty quick. Regardless, the chirping noise was present before this was done and continues today. Since this does not occur when I shift manually, does the tranny "during a shift from 1st to 2nd" do something differently or torgue something differently than what would occur shifting it manually from 1st to 2nd?

You now have me thinking about something related to the brakes. Shortly before this chirping began I drove the car out of state. I had PepBoys do a front-end brake job. It was shortly there after, and I mean within weeks, that I noticed this. This is why I originally thought that the caliper was sticking. I noticed some time ago that the pads didn't have the spring clips that keep them off of the rotor (when not depressed of course). They are on all other brakes. Do you think that maybe, when shifting manually, I'm pushing right through the sticking where as when the automatic shifts, the sticking becomes obvious between the gears? Hopefully I explained myself well enough for you to understand my meaning.

[pincheyloveclaw]

About your question on shifting manually vs. automatic, I am assuming it is an issue of differences in torque. When I took drivers-Ed in the great white north, they tought me that you should shift to low gears when driving in snow to avoid spin-out. However, my daddy always subscribed to the theory that if you are in a much higher gear than normally required (close to stall speed) you will not have enough torque for your wheels to spin out. In reality, both methods do work but each method strains the tranmission in a different way to control wheelspeed.

As for the spring clips on your brakes, I am unfortunately not terribly familliar with the protege's, but some cars have that spring clip and some do not so this may be normal for your car, Here's a little exploratory surgery for you to try.
1. Jack the car and take off the wheel (you did say drivers side right...?). with Trany in N, Turn your wheel hard left (or whatever direction you said it was) and try to duplicate the noise by tuning at the disk (you may need an assistant to pull-push the drive shaft while you turn. If you can locate the source then good. But maybe not...
2. Pull off the caliper and the brake disk (have a piece of wire handy to hang the caliper from just like doing a brake job).
3. Check your hub for corrosion or any debris that may cause your brake disk to not seat true to your hub. This could cause your disk to have a wobble. However, generally this condition will cause you to feel shaking at high speeds as well.
4. Aside from that inspect the hub/wheelbearing assembly (cause they are all one piece these days) to see if it is mounted loosly or may have been pushed into its mount too far or something like that. Sometimes those Pep-boys have trouble getting a rotor off for resurfacing due to corrosion and will use the BFH method of removal (BFH=Big F'ing Hammer). This may be how the cv got shifted. Now I wouldn't expect the WhlBrg to be bad based on your description of the problem, but I would suspect your issue may be somewhere in the connections between it and the axle/CV joint.
Were-it me, I would strip the parts at least to this point and see if you can find an issue. Do some exploratory testing, including pull/push on the axle while in that hard-left position and see if there is less play than in other positions; also spin the wheel (I mean hub) while doing this to see if you and come across a spot where it eaither squeaks or seems to bind (meaning it would squeak with enough momentum). If nothing, and you have a set of spring compressors, put those on to try it again at different wheel height positions. Also make sure the axle is pushed all the way into the trans. It may be very, very close and still not enough.
5. If you do find something you can definatly rule out brake issues, and while you have those spring compressors on, might as well remove the strut mount, pull the axle and have a look at that whlbrg from the back. Since its been chirping awhile you would expect to see a bright spot where contact has occurred.
6. Next try and plug the axle back into the whlbrg with the other end free of the tranny. and see if you still have that tight spot (assuming you found one). This will rule out the tranny if it still squeaks but I'm not sure that it is doable in terms of spatial requirements or reproducing the necessary angles etc.
7. Next do the outer CV joint (Since this will only cost you your time some greese and a couple of boot clamps).
8. Put all back toghether and hope the problem goes away. If not, talk to a tranny expert (not me), maybe something relly is slipping there. or maybe your wlbrg is not right somhow and needs to be replaced. Or maybe you'll just be cursing me for wasting half a day of your life.

Good luck, I would love to know how it turns out.

[acsipresident]

So far I have pulled the wheel, caliper and rotor off to perform a visual inspection and while I was there I replaced the rotor (I have two sets with one recently turned), found the M-Springs at Autozone, greased the slides for the pads, put the springs and pads on and everything else was put back together. I took the car for a quick spin and upon returning to my driveway there was that little "chirppp,,chirp".

Typically my son has the car, driving to college or somplace else so I don't have the chance to become complete intimate with the Mazda's behavior. However, yesterday I took it for the day on a 50-60 ride. What I know is this; from a stand still or cruising at 30, when I step hard on the gas and accelerate "straight" forward the car seems to shift smoothly and at the right time. Although, I must say that when you take off at a modest pace it does seem to shift into second too soon with not enough RPMs but that could be just the way it is geared. STEP ON IT and it is fine. Cruising around in normal traffic everything is nice with decent transitions from gear to gear. From a stand still turning to the left, STEP ON IT and it seems fine..no noise unless it is drowned out by the engine. Take off at a modest, gradual pace there is a 60-70 chance I'll get that "Chirp". I did notice that on one occasion I was making a right hand turn into a road and upon acceration out of the turn I received that noise. Now that was on a RIGHT turn which I hadn't noticed before but it was very faint.

I wish I could explain the "sound" better. The "chirp" is not like a metal grind and doesn't give a course feedback in the steering wheel. It could be something like a rusted tripod joint moving around inside the outer ring.

What I am going to try today is to pull the boots back and grease the tripod joints (and outer rings). If this doesn't work I'll start digging deeper as you suggested. Thanks for the deep thought and ideas. Gives me something to play with. I'll let you know what I learn.