1990 (or possibly 1991) LeSabre loud metal clunking noise

[skutter]

Hi,

This LeSabre has done 193,000 miles and recently has started juddering a lot when doing between 45 and 65 mph. Also, sometimes I hear a sinlge quietish clunk whenever I have to turn too sharp in either direction. Whenever the clunk happens on one of these sharp turns, after straightening up, the car drifts to whichever direction I last did a sharp turn.

It has worked like this for a while up until tonight. Tonight, when attempting to reverse out of a parking space, what sounded like the front right wheel made some seriously loud metal clunking noises. Loud enough to alarm pedestrians.

It seems intermittent (as in it did it only a few times while I was tentatively moving backwards and forwards at about 2 or 3 mph to ascertain the problem), but the sound was so loud and so worrying that I dared not move it any distance (so it is still in the parking lot).

Some people have suggested rack and pinion (not sure what that entails as I'm not very mechanic-savvy) and possibly bearings, but it definitely does sound as though it is emanating from the front-right wheel area.

If it is the bearings, what kind of a job to fix it would it be?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[HotZ28]

Sounds more like the upper strut bearing! You have to remove the struts to replace them. Better to let a shop do the work, unless you have the tools and know how. While your at it, better check the ball joints also.

http://www.monroe.com/products/mp_de...ltype=mounting

[yogi_123rd]

I'd check your sway bar anchor bolt, - it sounds like it snapped off ($2 item). I have a 90 lesabre where the bolt rusted off with age - sway bar was just hanging there. It also gave the drift you mentioned on turns.Pull the wheel and see what the damage.

[skutter]

OK, So I took the car to an auto repair shop nearby and they took my keys, wrote down the description of the problem, and took my name and phone number. I signed NOTHING.

They said they would call in a day or so when they had confirmed the problem. I double-checked with them on the phone just after I left and they once again confirmed that they would be calling with an estimate for the work.

They called today and told me "We found the problem, it was the brakes, they were gone. We fixed it. It will be 155.73."

Are they legally allowed to just randomly do work on a car without any form of proper agreement to do it? I know this is a dodgy situation and I'm not sure what my rights might be.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[maxwedge]

Varys from state to state, in NYS you must sign authorization or give a verbal ok over the phone, also here we are supposed to give estimates before work is done, most of the time this doesn't happen. If it is fixed, good you would have done it anyway, but look into the shop regs in your state.