I had a late model Honda CR-V come in for a noise complaint. The customer said there was a rattle when taking off from a stop. I heard it immediately, and when I lifted it I found that the transmission/transfer case was actually hitting the subframe.

After some looking around, we found that both of the bolts for the engine mount on the accessory side of the engine had broken, causing the engine and transmission to hit the subframe. It looks like the rear bolt has been broken for a while, and the stress eventually cause the front stud to break as well.

These bolts are not flimsy, they’re over half an inch in diameter, so I don’t how one could’ve broken in the first place. Even hitting them full strength with an air wrench would take a little time to break them.

Because the stud hadn’t broken off flush like the bolt we were able to use a bolt remover to get it out, and when we did we found that it hadn’t been installed as far as it was supposed to be, and it was cross-threaded and removed the threads from the engine timing chain cover when we pulled it out. Because of that, the entire timing chain cover had to be replaced.

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-Dan