Weird Car Problem

We had some weird problems over the past several days. Becky drives the car a lot more than I do and she noticed an old sound coming from what she thought was the exhaust system or maybe the engine. She also considered it might be from the transmission. When I was standing next to the car when she started it up I did hear an usual sound which might have been the muffler. She also said she sometimes heard a knocking sound. All of these weird sounds were very intermittent and she would drive for around for awhile and not hear anything.

We bought the car in June of 2019 and there is only about 17,000 miles on it now. There shouldn't be something going wrong like this. We think it may have something with the ice storm last week that might have damaged something down below in the exhaust system.

The car has needed an oil change so yesterday Becky took it over to Parkside Automotive and told the mechanic about the additional problem. He drove the car around a bit, heard the noise but could not find any reason for it. He had the car up on the lift and he examined the bottom of the car. He found no obvious problem or broken part. He said we should take it to the dealer.

We've bad experiences with the service department at Northtown over the years and are very reluctant to take the car there except when absolutely necessary. We've always had good experiences buying our cars there but the service department is inept. Becky called them to explain the problem and to make an appointment. The person on the phone said it would take a month to get in there. April 7th was the earliest we could get scheduled. We tried again at another Hyundai dealer at West Herr in Williamsville. We were able to schedule an appointment to check out the car in a week.

Becky then called Chris at BC Automotive. They were our mechanics for many years when they were located on Hertel Ave a few blocks down the street from Becky's studio. We used them a lot but then they moved over to Delaware Ave near Amherst Street and we then had the new car. It was just easier to have our oil changes and inspections done around the corner at the Parkside shop. But now we needed someone we trusted and Becky, who dealt with Chris the most, called. He was happy to talk with her and remembered us and our two Hyundai cars he took care of for so many years. He offered to look at our car right away but we said we would bring it in around 9 the next morning.

In the meantime I took the car and drove down to Canisius to drop of a book. On the way down I did hear the slight banging noise for just a moment and then it followed be about 30 seconds of a groan. That was it. I drove without music so I could listen for strange sounds and I was very careful going over the several speed humps on Crescent. On the way back from Canisius I did not hear or experience anything out of the ordinary.

So this morning I drove over to BC Automotive and dropped off the car. I spoke with Chris so more and described the sounds again. He said he would take the car out and listen himself. He asked me if I needed a ride back home and I said I was planning to take a Lyft ride. He then suggested that he kill two birds with one stone by driving me home in our car and he would get to hear and experience it with me. We did hear the knocking for about 3 seconds and then a little more of a quiet droning sound for a few more seconds. That was it. Nothing more.

He had the car in the shop most of the day as we waited to hear from him. Later in the afternoon getting close to 4 he called and said that he had the car on the lift but like Eric at Parkside he found no obvious problems. From the sounds he had heard he thought that maybe there was a loose part in the muffler or somewhere in the exhaust system but he could not pinpoint anything. He said that the best thing to do was to keep driving the car and either it would stop making noises or it would get worse and we would then bring it in for him to determine the problem. He thought there were no safety issues or something that would breakdown enough to cause the car to not run. He thought that if the problem got worse then it would sound more like a bad muffler. He did not charge us for anything he did today.

I got myself over to the shop using a Lyft ride and then drove the car home. It made only a very brief faint sound that I would probably not had heard if I had the music on. We'll drive it around like normal and see how it goes. We still have the two appointments scheduled at the dealers and Chris wants us to come by and see him if things get worse or we continue to have problems. If he determines the problem is the muffler than maybe we should just get it replaced. We'll see.