Jersey1019

Hi everyone. Long time lurker, first time poster.

About a month ago, I was driving on the highway in my 2006 EX sedan (~50K miles) and a 4 foot long metal pry bar was picked up by a truck tire and speared my car. Fortunately it struck low to the ground, piercing the black plastic grate on the front bumper as compared to, well, my torso.

The metal bar is about 4 feet long and about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. About 3 feet of its length was lodged in the car, entering at the level of the black plastic grating, approximately 18 inches to the passenger side of center at an angle of approximately 25 - 30 degrees "east of north" if looking at the front of the car.

The battery light came on as soon as the pry bar hit the car, and I noticed that the steering was a bit restricted. Thinking that the pry bar fell off the back of the truck in front of me, I was able to flag down that truck, the driver of which happened to work for a tow service. The road side diagnosis was that the alternator belt was knocked off, thus causing the battery light to come on. They towed my car to their garage and they replaced the alternator belt.

As soon as I turned on the car to leave the garage, the steering was fine and the battery light was off, but I heard a noise that the car had never made before. It's a cyclical noise that increases in frequency when I rev the engine, but is harder to hear once the RPM rate gets up around 2.5K RPM; I think this is because the engine is revving fast enough that you can no longer pick out the noise by its cyclical nature. The volume also changes, fading in and out while the engine idles. I hear it both when I start the car in the morning as well as after I shift into Park after a 2 hour highway drive.

Fortunately it was (and is) still drivable, and I had the dealer give it a once over the next day to inspect the new alternator belt and to try to diagnose the noise; they said the alternator belt looked fine but they didn't have any idea for the noise. Later when it went in for scheduled maintenance, they thought it might be the water pump, but didn't inspect it further since that apparently is a labor-intensive (and therefore expensive) project. Now the car is at the body shop getting a new bumper, and they've suggested it could be the serpentine belt, claiming that it was the original belt that should have been replaced at 30K miles, but after listening to a video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJs6MOPbwxI), that's not the noise I hear. For what it's worth, my father thought that it might be a valve tapping noise.

I'm hoping to tap into the collective Civic wisdom of this board to get some ideas as to what might be causing the noise, mostly because I don't know what components may have been hit by the metal pole. Any ideas would be appreciated, and of course post any questions you have and I'll do my best to answer them. Thanks to everyone in advance!

CraigW

iTrader: (1)

I would let the responsible company know that repair is not completed & the belt coming off was not the only damage.

As for troubleshooting... I would do a temp removal of the serpentine belt and restart engine briefly to see if noise still occurs, That would help narrow down the source.

My first thoughts are a damaged bearing the way you describe it.

Edit: You should have gotten a new OEM belt (on their bill) and I'm quite certain the belt is rated at over 30k easily.

johng35

Just because things work does not mean they are not damaged. I would agree and say a bearing was damaged and the noise is just the precursor to failure as the bearing slowly gives way.
I think you are lucky that the damage has been minimal (so far)- if that bar was higher in the air and hit the windshield ....ouch.

Could be alternator bearing or maybe water pump- something jared the belt off with a lot of force I would think.