Hey everyone I have had my 07' Prius about a month now and have noticed a odd sound coming from the left front of the car when accelerating. When I accelerate I hear an off metallic crackling sound. It almost sounds like marbles swishing around. The sound is coming from the left side of the car in the engine bay. If I had to guess it sound like it's coming from under the invertor area. The sound only happens when I am accelerating at a moderate pace. Any ideas?
107k. Is a bad bearing in the trans common? I haven't found anything that sounds to me like the sound my car is making. It happens under part to medium throttle.
no, it's not common at your mileage. it could just be something touching and rubbing that vibrates on acceleration.
It could be a developing "stress crack" in the unibody sheet metal. I had a 1977 Camaro that had a cracking sound on the right side front. It took 11 years, until the sheet metal failed and left the lower control arm hanging.
If you turn your wheel all the way to the left and go forward slowly, do you hear a clicking/thumping sound?
Since it is when you are accelerating, and you said it sounds like marbles in a can. The first thing that comes to my mind is that the engine is detonating (pinging). That is what I've always heard bad detonation sound like (at least in my other cars with much larger V8's). Does it happen at full throttle as well? If so, a can of good fuel injector cleaner couldn't hurt. I'd assume the Prius has a fuel filter also, although I've never changed mine (135,000k miles), it could be clogged from some bad gas. This is obviously just a guess since I'm not a Prius genius. dave
Another potential source could be an exhaust system heat shield. When you reach the right resident frequency it vibrates/rattles (i.e. specific load or acceleration point on the ICE). .02 M
thanks everyone for the answers... seems like this is all over the place for what it could be. I'll try using some higher grade gas and fuel system cleaner and look harder for something loose. I guess besides that Ill have to wait for a failure.
