What I'm currently experiencing with my 2008 Rogue is a grinding/sort of vibrating sound that occurs around 1500 RPMs around the 20 or less MPH range. Its intermittent, most obvious as well as most likely to occur when first turning on a driving the car. It does seem to be come less pronounced, go away completely after driving for awhile and its never present at any higher speeds. Location wise it seems to come from the engine area.

Oddly, it reminds me of a sound I've heard for years that seemed to occur under similar circumstances but seemed to be coming from the passenger rear wheel area. I always wondered if it might be something fuel pump related in origin since it was in the vanity of the gas tank input. However I wouldn't say I've ever had any issues that I would think were a result of not getting fuel to the engine.

One thing that has happened to my vehicle in the time between these similar sounds possibly "moving" from one place to another is the sub frame was recently replaced at the dealership. I have 137,000 miles on the Rogue, new transmission from last October, and I replaced the radiator last weekend. When I test drove it after the radiator replace, I thought maybe I fixed the noise. It didn't do it once. It was also a warm afternoon here in Florida. Next morning when staring and driving away from home it was back. I have covered parking at work and even though its a warm day, the car made the noise pulling away from the office today.

Curious if any of the above sounds familiar and someone might have a bead on something I can look to address to get it to go away. My gut says its someone vibrating, resonating at a specific range of vibration while in motion. Not just accelerating, it can do it in low speed traffic driving as well. Never in Park or in Neutral.

THANKS!

The tack welds on Nissan flex pipe shields and cat shields are infamous for popping, and they usually make intermittent noises that correspond to some engine harmonic. The noises can be anything from burps to bumblebees to marbles in a tincan. The ones on flex pipes are particularly prone to come-and-go behavior, because the coupling is constantly changing angle with load and road conditions. Take a large screwdriver and lift gently on all the tack-welded portions of your shields. The best fix for any broken ones is a stainless radiator band-clamp.

didn't think of burp as an example but it shares qualities with a long burrrrrrrrp for sure. Thanks for the tip on where to start looking! Guessing too that heated exhaust system will expand and potentially dampen some of the vibration gap. I'll report what I discover when I look this coming weekend. THANKS!

Dumb follow up question but they sell radiator band clamps that fully open? The ones I'm use to, when you open them fully the still have to be put over the open end of the hose/pipe. Would make sense to have one that can wrap around first before you tighten it but I've not seen that style before.

The kind you want is a "worm drive" clamp like this. They open all the way up:

Ahhh I know the screw doesn't come out of these and I swear in the past I came across where the band wouldn't expand out all the way to open but good to know. Also, sorry for posting a new question for one that I see has come up several times in the past. Once I started googling 08 Rogue heat shields and few posts showed up from the forums.

commanderclif wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 07, 2022 5:46 am

Also, sorry for posting a new question for one that I see has come up several times in the past. Once I started googling 08 Rogue heat shields and few posts showed up from the forums.

You had a noise but didn't suspect it was a heat shield till I suggested it. It was a perfectly valid question, no apologies needed.

My solution was just grabbing a plastic hanger lying around; with the clips that hold clothing. Those real cheap things you get free at the store. I then ripped a plastic clip off with my scrawny arms and attached it to the heat shield where the metal hits metal and the approximation of where the sound was emanating from.

Luckily, this eliminated the annoying high resonance sound many moons ago. Sometimes when I examine rust or do a check over of the underbody, I see the ugly cheap clip there. I then might reset the clip at times, but it's funny tho.

It's just ghetto/red-neck as it comes!

Moreover, I had to use 2 worm clamps on both side of my oem radiator band clamp to reinforce it (small hose near radiator cap location) because it was leaking there after installing my new radiator.

Got under the Rouge this morning, the only thing obviously loose was this heat shield. I went ahead and removed it to do a test drive without it and that wasn't the sound. However, while test driving, I think I was to glean a bit more it to what/when the sound occurs.

There seems to be a relationship to weight distribution involved here. When bringing the vehicle to a stop I can hear places where the weight moving forward makes a creak etc. The vibration/gurgle/rumble sound I heard seems closely associated with the weight redistributing backwards from the front to the rear as the vehicle accelerates. So faster acceleration seems to be less prolonged vibration sound/shutter than a slow acceleration. Can't say that heavy breaking/trying front load the weight quicker = more likely groan sound though, may even be the opposite.

Since I don't recall this sound being a thing before the sub-frame was replaced could it just be some kind of break-in or maybe I need to get it back to the dealership to have them reinspect the install to see if something isn't right.

Its more of an annoyance then likely a real problem and the car does have a 137,000 miles on it so certainly not expecting it to sound/perform brand new.

Lots of times when subframes or gussets are replaced with the wheels up it causes the body to be stressed and makes noise. We see this even on brand new vehicles, since the cars are wheels-up for most of their trip down the production line. You may just need a "chassis relaxation". You can do it yourself using ramps, we use the alignment rack at the shop. Take loose and re-torque all the subframe, gusset, and rack bolts with the weight of the car on the wheels. It can cure a multitude of chassis creaks and groans.

Thanks! An added note, dealer said subframe replacement would require an alignment and they wanted to charge $100 for it but I already have a lifetime of alignments at my tire place so it was in there last week for the alignment which wasn't too far off cause the dealer had marked stuff when they loosened everything. So it was just in on the alignment rack for what thats worth.

You might simply want to pay them to do the relaxation for you next time it's on the rack. The alignment won't have relaxed it, because they would only be taking loose the adjustment cams and sleeves. The idea with relaxation is to loosen all the frame attachments with the weight of the car applied, so everything can settle into a natural and "unstressed" position before being re-torqued. An alignment afterward is a good idea anyhow, because sometimes the subframe will shift several millimeters when everything settles and it can affect both camber and toe. So you can kill two birds with one stone by letting them do it.