Grinding noise from rear end

This is going to be difficult to explain, but my Cayman currently sounds like a diesel tractor ! It all started one Friday afternoon when................. It was a very warm day, I noticed a grinding / rubbing noise from the back end when driving along. I put it into neutral and it still made the noise, but with a break in the noise as if it was a brake disk rubbing or something. It appeared to be coming form the right-hand rear of the car and was worse when turning right... When it was cooler it made a few 'clunking' noises the first time the brakes were applied. I checked underneath the car thinking that perhaps a stone had got caught in the disk shield / caliper area, but nothing. When I washed the car last night, the inside of the right, rear alloy appears to have some sort of coating of oil on the inside. This morning the car was fine, but today is quite warm and by this evening, it's making a squeeking/grinding noise even when going in a straight line. Any ideas ? I'm thinking that it could be either a bearing or a drive shaft, but it's one of those things that I can take it back to the dealer and I guarantee that it won't make the noise !

I just sent a PM to Steve_A - my car has started making a similar noise and I wanted to see what his problem turned out to be. Hopefully he will respond but if not, I wanted to see what others thought. It sounds like something rubbing underneath, kind of a rubbing*silence*rubbing*silence that continues for a few seconds when turning (sometimes even when going straight for a few seconds after a turn). It is more noticable on right turns and sounds similar to a rubbing brake. At times, something just sounds loose back there. Has anyone else had this similar issue? I too am worried that when I bring the car to the dealer it will not make the sound. Sometimes there is no noise...

This may be a stretch since it was thought to be from oversized wheels but see: http://www.planet-9.com/cayman-chat/13619-strange-sound-only-when-moving-forward.html By all means take it in for warranty work.

Hi Santa Fe, I don't think I have that issue - my wheels and tires are stock and the rubbing sound is a heavy rub ... metallic in nature. When I hear something loose, it sounds substantial. I have grabbed the exhaust and it appears to be okay. Nothing else looks loose or disturbed. I am bringing it to the dealer tomorrow but the service advisor was already trying to warn me about them possibly not being able to track down a noise. However, something is really amiss and now I can't stop dwelling on it. So, if anyone can provide other advise to "aid" the mechanics in their search, I would appreciate it!

Please let us know the outcome and don't let the service writer put you off. If you hear it then its real and needs addressing.

Guys This may be a long shot but .... I had a grinding/rubbing from the rear near side of my Cayman . Having had gearbox problems I thought this was the issue and called Porsche assist. The car was taken to the OPC and the fault ? was found to be a stone jammed in the caliper. You could not see it easily and it took the OPC almost a week to find !! The grinding noise on my cay only happened badly when turning right, on left turns it could sometimes be heard faintly. Hope this helps. Bob

Well, I got my car back from the dealer yesterday - they were not able to hear the noise from underneath the car, which is intermittant on turns. I did not hear it yesterday on the way home. So, it looks like I will have to wait until the sound shows itself ALL the time or worse...something goes kaput. The dealer was able to fix my thump from the rear trunk though, so not a complete waste. The tech wrote "Spring ends on cover knock on interior panel over bumps. Test drove veh extensively and pinpoint knocking noise to luggage cover. Applied felt to ends of spring to prevent noise. Test Drove. Knocking noise gone." Right he is - so nice to have a quiet vehicle when going over the bumps!

Grinding from rear I too have this issue. Only occurs when turning to the right. Has only occurred two or three times for a brief period of time in almost 6000 miles. First time was more like rubbing last time was yesterday and it was more like gears trying to mesh. I've not taken it to the dealer as I'm almost certain they couldn't duplicate the problem. It seeminlgy has only occurred at very slow speeds. My car has the tiptronic trans. Curious to find out if anyone can identify the problem.

So the fix is to stay off of roads with stones? Great!

Nope I have a mile long gravel drive and don't have this issue (or any trunk clunk either). If you are looking for a reason not to buy a Cayman this isn't it.

Don't be stupid and suggest this is something it is not. A stone in the caliper is not a quality issue any more than a nail in a tire. If you think it is a quality issue, you can blame Brembo who makes the breaks. But I don't think you will find anyone who agrees they have less than excellent quality. Certainly Nissan has chosen to use them.

My comment about this noise has nothing to do with wheels or tires mine are all stock/original. Not looking for a reason not to buy a Cayman -already own one. But don't think the noise is part of the standard features or they would have charged me extra for it. My comment is a legitimate problem I don't understand and was hopeful of gaining some insight from others experience.

Hum, my car had an issue where it started to make a wining noise from the rear. I also heard some clucking/grinding noises a few times that did not last very long then, my belt broke. They said it was a pulley bearing that had frozen up and cause the belt to break. I wonder if it is a bearing starting to freeze up? All warranty fixed in 24 hrs and I even got a 07 Cayman S for a loaner.

I have not heard the noise since I got my car back from the dealer, but I have not driven it a lot since then either. If I find out anything further I will post it here. Brianlbk if you ever ID your problem, please let me know! You might be on to something about both our cars being Tips. I have always been in D mode when I hear it (second gear, slow turn like you mention), I have never heard it with the car in M Mode driving with the paddles. By the way, I'm not selling my car either, nor should anyone be afraid to purchase one. I love it. All cars have their issues, I just hope to find this one while its still under warranty! To steal a phrase from Nissan, "Enjoy the Ride".

Mine is doing it too... My 07 Cayman S is making this noise. I can replicate the noise by coasting in neutral at around 15-25 mph and making short turns to the right. Am calling the dealer tomorrow and will post the outcome.

In my 98 Subaru Legacy GT, I am having this same issue. It sounds like it's coming from the left rear wheel. It sounds like grinding like a bearing is going out or something. It's driving me crazy and is quite loud. I thought that it could be a rock stuck in the brake pad but the rotor doesn't looked scratched at all. I took the wheel off and looked all around. I can't figure it out. I would love to know how to fix this.

For the Subie I'd guess that the differential oil needs changing.

Nope, that's not it. I changed the differential fluid, correctly, over a year ago. I also checked the oil level recently (gear oil). I don't think it's that. Any other ideas?

My Cayman (17,000 miles) began making a "rubbing/grinding" noise intemittently a week or so ago. Same sound whether the clutch was in or out and independent of which gear. It turned out to be the left rear wheel bearing. I'm going by the dealer to pick it up in a few minutes. The dealer mentioned that tracking the car does stress it more, but that it still should have not happened. Since Parktown Porsche sponsors the DE at Gateway International Raceway, they do know that I track my car and they do support tracking, but it remains to be seen how Porsche responds to continued to tracking-aggrevated weqar and tear under warranty (I have already had my power steering pump replaced, a Porsche problem aggrevated by tracking).

Any updates on route cause??? I seem to have the same issue coming from the left rear. It is a grinding / popping sound when turning left. Hard to replicate. I am worried that the dealer would just give me a funny look and not be able to fix it. From reading this post, it could be a wheel bearing, or a stone in the caliper? I am planning to pull the rear left tire off and inspect it myself. I will repost to let you know what I find... But I do find it odd that a few of us have a very similar issue. Has anyone had issues with the half shafts in the rear??

IT WAS A ROCK!!! I pulled off the rear wheel, dropped off the caliper, and a marble sized rocked dropped on out!!!! The design of the brake calier lends itself to being a small shelf to hold stones the size of the last digit of my pinky finger. No damage to the rotor , caliper, or brake pads. Sounded horrible, but once it was out - no issues whatsoever. Easy fix guys! If you spend much of any time on a gravel road and get this issue - take a peek if you have a stone in there!!!! I think it literally took about 15 minutes. Better than dropping her off at the dealership for a day! :banana: :cheers:

My car is making the same sound. Is there a consensus that its caused by a rock in the caliper?

Newbie here. 2 week owner and first post. 2007 Base. Carmona Red with Sand Leather. I have the same issue. It happens only in the morning and starts when I hit the same curve each morning. It's also a right turn. When it starts, it continues on each right turn of the steering wheel until I get to the office (5 minutes after the curve). It doesn't happen when I drive home and the dealer couldn't find anything. Starting to drive me nuts.

I have the same noise issue on my '07 Boxster to. It started when making a right turn and beside hearing some noise from power steering it also has the grinding noise. Know it makes this noise on both left and left turns, but not at all times. It even makes this noise when leaving from first gear but not all the time and usually the first kilometers of driving when the car has not warmed up. however right turn is the worst. The grinding noise is not all the time there, just in short burst's. Aspecially when turning and on uneven roads where the wheels are not level the grinding noise is becoming loud, just like a tire is rubbing against the bodyshell. At the garage they told me it could possibly be the powersteering or the differential gears. I just hope it's a rock that became stuck in the caliper.

Very cool information, Gator! I've got a lift and can look at my coil springs. I get a fairly substantial tire thump noise coming through the back of the car from the right rear tire. Sometimes just turning them in the spring perches will solve this. I wonder how long the felt will last??? I worked on trunk clunk issue a while back. Put the foam strips on the counterweight in the hatch. I may have helped with the big thumping, but I got a lot of low frequency thumping, on bigger bumps and didn't like that...especially with the aged PS2s that were on the car. Sunday, I took the hatch apart again, took the foam strips off and put some rubber O-rings on...3 behind each side of the weight and 2 in front. It made a big improvement. It's not possible to tighten the bolts down all the way with this setup. I think the loc-tite will hold it, though. Ah, the GRINDING NOISE....Could be a CV joint going out? With this non-limited slip, it's pretty easy to get the inside wheel spinning hard and then slam down on the pavement. Also, the car is full of axle tramp on hard acceleration, which is murder on them. Hard acceleration on bad roads is real bad too because the tires are so big and that slip and then catch thing going on. My car had a new right half-shaft on it when I bought it. I think, when these CV joints start to go, you get the same sort of grinding noises...on turns at first, then all the time. If it changes when you accel and decel gently, that's probably what it is. The good news is that the cost to fix is a fraction of what transaxle work costs. Bad news is that it doesn't take a lot of miles to completely lunch them and they can create a lot of heat while they're going out. That can damage a diff or a rear wheel bearing. If I had a noise like that, I'd check this out by going for a drive long enough to warm up the car, then get underneath and carefully check one side verses the other for heat. A touchless pyrometer would be ideal for that, but I think it would be some pretty obvious extra heat if there was a bad one.

One more idea, guys....Torque your WHEEL BOLTS just to be sure. I've been doing my own work for about 20 years prior to DE's. Same M3 , same lift, same brake-bleeding, pad changing and wheel changing procedure every spring. I did some work in September for an October school last year. I have a frame lift and can do all the wheels at once. With the car on the lift but wheels still on the ground, I go around the whole car and loosen all the bolts, then raise the tires an inch or two off the ground and go around again removing all the bolts with just an extension and socket and remove the wheels. When I'm done bleeding the brakes, I do the opposite...with wheels in the air slightly, I put the bolts on and snug them up, then drop the car down enough to put weight on the wheels and go around the whole car doing my wheel torquing procedure with a torque wrench . This time, I missed the left rear. Don't know how, don't know why. I even did a test drive and scrubbed in some new R tires with the car in this condition. Heard a noise back there, could not figure out what it was. I'm really careful with assembly of brakes, bleeding and wheel torquing. The phone must have run during my torquing process. The point is, I didn't even consider loose wheel bolts when I heard the noise. I drove all the way up to R/A with a little more than hand-tight bolts on one wheel. Heard the noise, could not figure it out. I'd just changed diff oil, so I suspected a diff problem and went back and changed the diff oil again. I suspected a lot of stuff. Noise was worse with turning, seemed to go away with hard acceleration. It got worse as I drove further with the car but still there was no obvious handling issue leading me to the bolts. Near the track, vibration got pretty fierce and I was convinced I'd lost a wheel bearing. I limped the car into town. Finally, in Plymouth, WI, I stopped for gas before heading into Elkhart Lake and went all around the car again. I saw a wheel bolt sticking out a bit as I was filling up. Got out my torque wrench on a whim and tried it....all 5 bolts took several full turns to tighten. The bolts were pretty beat up, but I had a spare set of longer, stouter bolts that I had thrown in my track box a couple years ago and never used. They worked really well and I had a happy track experience. BBS RX wheels are STRONG! Lesson learned: Always recheck the all the easy stuff when a mysterious symptom appears. This story obviously could have turned out with a very unhappy ending. I was lucky. It's over 200 miles to the track from my house. Most of it on interstates at speed. I think the bolts only got loose enough to get beyond the hub-centric center alignment step at the very end and it really sounded like gears were going to fall out on the ground or like a completely dry bearing.. I stopped several times looking at CV joints, diff etc. Wheels looked normal. A word of advice....Never Do This!!!

This happened to me exactly as you described. Mine was a stone issue hidden in the wheel. I did not see any scratches or debris. The stone shot out when I pulled into a driveway with a 2" lip. The stone shot out like a projectile! The noise sounded like a real bad transmission problem!!! Look very carefully in those rear wheels, objects can be hidden.

FWIW; 09 CS with about 1K miles. Drove to work and no unusual conditions. Car was parked for about 8 hours, when backing out of the parking space I had a rubbing sound like something caught in the rotor (from the rear), and the rubbing was like the rotor was warped - would rub for a portion of a wheel revolution. Moved forward and back a couple of times and it stopped and has not occured since. Now 2k miles. Wonder if it could be a caliper not fully releasing ( PDK and hand bradk was set)?

Guys: This sounds suspiciously like rusted rotors to me. Car wash before parking? Rain before parking? Always ask the easy questions first.

This is the case with many euro cars, not just Porsche .