Hi all. The Saturn forums are relatively deserted nowadays, so I thought I'd try here. I have a 2001 automatic trans SL2 that I'm now afraid to drive. I've had a rattling noise in my front left wheel for a while. New bearings helped for about a week, but it came back. A couple of days ago, the constant rattle was replaced by a rapid LOUD BANGING when I turn left. When driving straight, there are occasional random bangs, and when I turn tight to the right, there's an unnerving grinding noise, all definitely coming from the front driver's side. There's no bouncing, so I'm not thinking it's the strut mounts. There's no shaking, so I'm hoping it's not the ball joint or tie rod. My most likely suspect is the cv joint, since I also have a hard shifting problem that started immediately after a tricky parallel parking job. When I was trying to get out of the spot, every time I turned the wheel to the left, shifting was accompanied by a loud THUNK. Ever since then, I've had inconsistent hard shifting into random gears. I've read the cv joint makes a "popping" sound. If "Popping" sounds like I'm driving over mortar shells, then that's probably it.
I'm hoping for input, since we have to do this at home. Once everything's apart, it's going to be really hard to get to the auto parts store if the noise turns out to be coming from the brakes instead of the cv joint.
Has anybody ever had a brake problem that sounded like this? I'm not hearing brake specific noises while stopping and it doesn't feel like it's sticking at all while I'm driving.
My other question would be: How safe is this thing to drive? I have to make 3 left turns to get to work, and if it fails completely, I've got a long way to walk.
Thanks in advance for any ideas

It sounds like the CV joint, to me. If you jack up the car and remove the front left wheel, you should be able to better diagnose the situation. The price of half-axles has plummeted--you can buy new Cardone Select axles for around $50 each. Personally, I would also replace the lower ball joint (Moog), since you will have the knuckle off. This link should help, since most of these jobs are pretty similar:

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/cars-t...ml#post1691894

Be sure to get the torque specs for your axle nut and use a quality torque wrench.

The "thunk" noise sounds like your ATX may need servicing, too. I would drop and clean the pan, change the filter, and refill with new fluid.