2000 caravan noise when hit on holes

[rayray42]

heyya,

my wife has a 2000 Dodge Caravan. everytime she enters into a hole on the road, which she does very often, , there is a terrible noise coming from the suspension.

can you guess why is that? I have tried to check it out and everything seem kind of rusty. but I want to start replacing parts in right order.

[Scotty89]

Try the sway bar bushings. My votect instructor's van was makeing a poping sound when you would rock the van. The sway bar bushings was stuck to the bar. The sway bar should move a little in the bushings. All I done to fix this was I took the brackets lose to the bushings and twisted them to break them lose. Then squirted some lube in the bushings around the bar and reinstalled the brackets. Its been fine ever since.

[Bear]

You do not say if it is front or err, or both, however, slide under the rear and look at the jounce or bump stops mounted above the rear axle, mine were totally gone.

[Scotty89]

I was talking about the front suspensiion.

[wayneo69]

replace the sway arm bushings and the sway arm end links, you probley have the old style end links on it anyway about 50 bucks for both of them. replace them you will be happy with the results. i replace them almost on a daily bases.

[rayray42]

Thanks guys for your comments. The noise comes from front. Are there any particular brands that you might advice for those? I don't want to use OE parts.

[dandy12]

These were bugging me for me for months in my wife's car till we had it in for service and I couldn't believe I overlooked such a simple thing as this. Those damn things can make a terrible racket. I replaced with the OEM ones from the dealer and was surprised how cheap they were. Sorry, I can't remember how much they were but remember thinking it wouldn't have been enough to shop them around but they couldn't have been more than $10-15 eabus.

Since I have replaced them (which they are a very simple change) the car runs and sounds like a dream.

I think Dodge messed up on a design error or spec for those bushings because this is a very common problem with the Caravans.

Hope this helps,

Dan

[Scotty89]

Its Dodges way of saving money by making cheap parts that last a year.

[migs_auto]

I replaced mine at about 70 K with OEM. They are making a racket again so I need to replace them, again ! (about 120 K) May try non-OEM this time around.

[TCGrove]

I had this same problem at 70K. It was (like the post before me said) some cheap sway bars and the rubber bushings. I will add one more thing to check though. Talk about timing. I'm having the front right CV joint replaced as we speak (in our maintenance shop at work...). We thought it was the wheel bearing assembly, but found out otherwise after tearing it all apart. The CV was making a clicking noise you could feel through the floor boards. Not good. Take a look.

[catkoot]

I just fixed the same noise . i bought the sway arm bushings and the front struts mount, all the parts are $62 from dodge dealer here in NY .
Now it sounds perfect i love it.Its been making that noise for the last 2 or 3 years! finaly its gone . Go ahead and do it.