This past Saturday, Hagan and I worked on his '05 Nissan Altima. Earlier in the week, I was driving his car and noticed that during a certain span of acceleration, there was an odd vibration. I wondered if it might be a wheel/tire or suspension issue. However, I had recently watched Eric O. at South Main Auto diagnose a similar issue and it was a faulty engine mount. So I had a friend from work watch the engine movement as I put it in gear, pressed the brake pedal with my left foot and gave it a little gas with my right foot. He actually recorded it with his phone, so I was able to play it back and see that the front mount was moving excessively. Turns out that the rubber was shot in that one, and it was even flattened out a bit on one side (see video below). I also visually inspected the front left and front right mounts and use a pry bar to see how much they moved; I could tell that the rubber bushings were not completely broken on those, but they are visibly worn and cracked and they move a little more than they should. So, I ordered a kit (4 mounts), and we had enough time to get the front one swapped out. We'll likely swap out the front right mount next, and eventually the front left.

Interestingly, "while we were in there," as the saying goes, I noticed a problem with the negative battery cable. The cable runs from the negative terminal on the battery to a connector that grounds to the body, and then it extends further to where it connects to and grounds to the engine block. Well, the cable had corroded out of the connector at the block and, thus, was not fully grounded. So, we also replaced the cable.

There's more work to be done. I'll keep you posted.