I have an 03 JCW with H-sport springs and Koni FSDs. the tires are 215-45-17 on OZ Ultralegerras. The car is runing great, but noticed a new phenomena when demonstrating the tight turing radius in our parking lot for a coworker.

When the car is tunred over 80% in either direction at 5-15 mph, a repetitive thump can be heard in the wheel well on the tire on the inside of the turn. This is regular and can be felt in the car / steering wheel. It seems to occur about every revolution of the wheel. I turned off DSC and no change, tried several areas in the parking lot that had no seams and still had the feeling with both LH and RH turns .

What might be causing this??

Low power steering fluid ?
Time for new Left and Right CV joints??
Or is this normal - seems too prominant to be normal...

 

Were the shocks and springs installed recently? What I'm wondering is, did the thumping noise start after the suspension change, or has the suspension been installed for a time and you've just noticed the noise?

 

check clearence and your Tie rod end for the front sway bar.. they may be hitting when doing tight turns.

 

The H-Sport springs are old, but the Koni's and the Ultraleggera's are new. I bought the car used a few months ago and never really noticed if the car did this on tight turning.....

I'll check the tie rod end and front sway bar. I am a bit perplexed that it is a cyclic bump and not a constant grinding. Most of the clearance issues would appear to cause constant rubbing and not a thump.....thump.....thump.

 

does it have an lsd installed? the 03's didn't come with factory lsd's (correct me if i'm wrong) but perhaps the previous owner had an aftermarket one put in? might be that...

 

No LSD....

 

The thought on the Tie rods.. On mine which im running 15" rim on very tight turns the wheel wieghts on the inside of the rims was what was hitting and not the rim itself.. which cause the cycling Thump.. by putting on a wheel spacer i was able to cure mine