How much is too much? Inner CV to transaxle play...

I have been trying to chase down a strange noise in the front end of my Elantra. The noise seems to be from the middle to right side of the car. I also listened and experimented a bit more, and the noise is worse if the car is coasting and the driveline slack, and it seems more toward the right/center than out by the wheel.

Its a 2011 GLS, automatic, with 78,000 miles on the car, but less than 5,000 on the transaxle which was replaced under warranty. It also had shims installed in the axles out at the hub as part of a TSB to eliminate a clunk shifting from Drive to Reverse about 5,000-6,000 miles before the trans was replaced.

I've gotten tired of hearing the rattle, and tired of hearing the dealer say they can't find anything. I had a chance to get under it and have a look around over the weekend.

When I climbed under I didn't find any loose tie rods, ball joints or strut bearings. Since it was aligned after the transaxle replacement without any issues I was leaning towards sway bar links or bushings, but those were tight and looked good.

The only thing that seemed to have any significant play was the right axle where it going into the trans. The inner and outer joints are tight, no wiggle in the joint either rotating or radial. when rotating the with the trans in park and the right wheel off the ground, I noticed the inner joint would move radially relative to the trans as the gear slack was taken up. If I grab the inner CV joint I can wiggle it around in the trans probably an 1/8" or more at the joint body. That movement will also create some clunks in the trans. The left axle has less play, but still has some play.

If I recall correctly when working on most FWD cars the axles were well supported in the tranaxle and didn't have any measurable radial movement relative to the trans. But those were mid 80's hondas, and mitsu powered hyundai's, so its been a while since I've removes axles or a trans from something other than a subie or VW and neither of those had axles that slid into the trans.

Are the new tranaxles really as sloppy as mine, or do I just have bad luck?

Thanks, Joe

I know of a fellow with a late model Fiesta who has a similar problem. It is still under drive train warranty and he is finally getting the dealer to look further into the problem.

One more thing to add to the mystery...

The noise was present with the original trans and is still present after the replacement.

I did notice play between the axle and original when trying to find the clunk going from R to D or the other way.

I only know Porsche and VW, but it sounds like excessive play in the stub axle splines. Do you have a CV joint socket to remove the bolts? It would be well worth unbolting the axle (at the inner CV joint) from the stub axle and pulling to to take a close look for galling and wear to the splines on both that and inside the trans where it slides in.

If you had the noise before the trans swap and have it again and used the same axles, this might be the problem.

Thanks for the feedback I've received so far.

As far as I know, the dealer did not replace the axles when the trans was replaced.

Unlike a VW, the splined stub shaft is part of the inner CV joint and slips into the trans, so I can't just unbolt it. I'd have to separate the ball joint to slip it out.

Its still under warranty, so I don't want to dig in too far. I'm mainly looking for a sanity check that I'm not way off base thinking that there may be too much play in the axle, leading to the noise.

My experience with the dealer (2 different one) has been that I need to provide them a description of the problem, proof of the issue, and the potential source before they act on it. For example, no matter how descriptive the instructions were for the dealer to reproduce the original trans problem they weren't able to reproduce it (I could reproduce it any morning just by backing into my driveway nose uphill). But once I took a video that showed the gauges and the obvious flare they were suddenly able to reproduce it and replaced the trans.