I have a 2001 SLE with 222,000 miles. I have a loud clicking metal tapping noise coming from the front of the car. It happens when accelerating forward at 20 mph or faster. If I coast it goes away. If I turn a little or a lot to the left while accelerating it goes away. If I turn a lot or a little to the right while coasting it comes back. Any ideas? I have replaced the driver side wheel bearing (2nd one in 2 years) and the driver side half axle. Still have the noise. I do get the dreaded death shake at times while driving. I have had the shake problem for quite a while and am still trying to figure that one out. Sounds like the dreaded death shake is common for these cars. Thinking I am going to have to try replacing the passenger side half axle next unless somebody has a better idea. The reason for replacing the bearing is because the speed sensor went out. In replacing it I noticed that the bearing itself was super loose. Was surprised that it was not making any grinding noise. I have had other bearings that were not nearly as worn out as this one and would just howl and grind so bad. Since this bearing only lasted a year I suspected that the clicking noise may be coming from the half axle and if it was bad it may of speeded up the demise of the bearing. But as it turns out the half axle was good and not the cause of the noise. Any help in solving my clicking noise or death shake would be greatly appreciated.

Have you had the car aligned since you started having these problems?

Not yet. It is about due for new tires so I will be having it aligned then. Not thinking that is going to help this problem.

Jack the car up and put it on jack stands. Fire up the car, put it in gear and see if you can hear it or see whats happening while the front tires are spinning. That might point where its at. Have someone in the car that can slam the brakes on if need be....you don't want to accidentally get sucked into the wheel well if a piece of your clothing catches on anything while its turning.

Dont forget the Parking Brake.

Do you think one of the tires could make the noise?

Rotated the tires and noise is unchanged. Anybody have any ideas?

Loud clicking noise was the passenger side tie rod end. It was loose and all the shaking caused it to click really loud. Still need to solve the shaking vibrating problem. It seems to show up a lot on this sight. Have not seen any threads that have talked about how to fix it.

Check the wheel hubs, wheel balance, inner and outer tie rods, and CV shafts.

Hubs, both cv shafts and outer tie rods have been replaced. I also rotated tires front to back and still no improvement. Still need to check inner tie rods. One thing that I notice is if I turn the steering wheel to the right a few degrees from center the wobble in the steering wheel gets worse. A few degrees further to the right and it settles down a little bit. If I go a few degrees to the left of center I get no increase in the wobble. Tempted to put a video camera under the hood and see if I can see what the heck is wobbling while I am driving down the road.