So today after work I'm driving home down the Highway, I'm doing around 60MPH, all of the sudden out of nowhere, I hear a Boom followed by a Huge Metal on Metal rapping sound that I believe was comming from my front Hub/wheel assembly! At first, I thought I had dropped an exhaust or something. Yeah it was loud! My truck is a 2007 4x4, 5.4 SCREW! It only has 13,000mi. I pull up to a red light the sound stopped. I get home, check underneath, nothing out of order. I go out to do an errand, only doing 15MPH pulling up to a stop sign, same noise. No, I did not accidently engadge the 4x4 system when this happens. Has stopped for now. This was loud & scarred me, as I never heard anything like this before! I'm takin it into the Dealer to be checked out Wednesday after X-Mas.......Any of you guys ever experience this or have an idea on this..?....I'm puzzled......

 

That's odd. I don't have a clue, man. Only from the one side? Wierd.

 

Doesnt sound good. Let us know what you find out.

 

Sounds like a metal gear is turning fast, like when I was on the highway, & all of the sudden another metal part is getting grinded down.......If you would put a few metal bolts inside of a electric blender & turn it on...you would have heard the noise I heard today......after the loud boom......Yikes, it scarred me to death....... knowing my luck, there will be no way to duplicate it for the Dealer Tech.....however I experienced it twice today within a half hour.......

 

Maybe there's a rock wedged in the caliper? Only thing I can think of at this time.

 

That's a possibility! I'm gonna have the Dealer pull the left side front wheel Wednesday, & do a comnplete check of the front end.........I'll let you know what they find, if they do find anything........Man, it scarred the crap out of me.....I've never heard a noise like that before in all my years of driving...

 

Hmmmm, the way you are describing it does sound like a hub/4x4 problem. Hope you get it fixed.

 

I had a wheel bearing seize up on me in my ford probe once, it made a constant metal grinding sound though. I had to get a whole new hub/steering knuckle.

 

Yeah, I'm thinking that, or a Automatic Locking Hub problem, possibly?.....

 

Wierd that it would be sporadicly engaging/disengaging though. But don't listen to me, I don't have a 4wd.

 

I used the 4x4 quite extensively the last big snow storm we had, however the 4x4 system was never abused.......I'm puzzled.....

 

Sounds like you have a bad I.W.E. solenoid. Next time it happens, immedeiatly throw it into 4 hi, if it suddenly stops, then it is definitly the IWE.

Basically, the IWE controls vacuum to the hubs. While in 2 hi, the passage between engine vacuum and the hubs is open keeping the hubs disengaged. In 4 hi, the port to engine vac is blocked and the port to the hubs is opened to the atmosphere, allowing the spring inside the hubs to engage the front wheels. When the IWE solenoid is bad, they leak vacuum and only a partial vac is applied to the hubs. Eventually the vac bleeds down to the point that the spring pressure overcomes the vac and tries to engage the hubs causing a grinding noise that you heard. When you engage 4 hi while it happens, you are dumping all vac to the hubs and are allowing them to fully engage.

When you take the truck in to get this looked at and fixed, if it is the IWE, then you better have them look at the splines on the hub that was grinding and see if they are damaged, since it first happened at 60 mph, there is a good chance that the hub in question is shot.

B.T.W. you did nothing to cause this, it's a bad designed solenoid valve and it's a common problem. Also all 04-up 4x4's have them, whether you have a manual 4x4 system or E.S.O.F.

 

could be a bad IWE solinoid but your dealer will need to pull codes to find out. i have also seen a few 07s with bad vacume lines causing a leak to the front iwes and randomally engaging them. the leak usually occures at the t connection inside the passenger wheel well. the only fix is new lines. your dealer should be able to fix you up

 

That exact thing happened to my friend's Silverado. I was with him when we went to the shop. His caliper had broken off.

 

My money is on this as well, my old 06 had this happen to me on the highway in the rain and it scared the crap outta me too! There is a TSB out there if you search for IWE solenoid. The dealer repplaced the solenoid and the problem went away.