Spec me wtf is wrong with my car :D (Noob alert)

[uncle_rufus]

Hey all,

Just a longshot this really... Car is making a bit of a weird noise and I have no knowledge with cars at all, I'm just trying to brace myself for how expensive it might potentially be for me...

It's a 2009 Astra, a Club (or whatever the cheapest one is!), nothing fancy. Owned it for just over a year which puts it out of warranty from the Vauxhall dealer and manufacturers 3 years I think.

Anyway it's making a sound I can best describe as a bit like if you had a metal tin with something rattling around inside it, and seems to only make the noise in reverse, 1st or 2nd gears and just at the biting point, so it seems like it's going to be related to the clutch/gearbox/transmission but that's about the limit of my detective skills

Trying to search around gives people stating minor problems costing a few hundred at most, up to OMFG you need a whole new gearbox and it's gonna cost £1000s including labour etc... I'm gonna give 2 or 3 different garages a call tomorrow and see what they say, but in the meantime does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[uncle_rufus]

Cheers for the quick responses

Release bearing? Does it make a wooshing sound when driving and you lift off the pedal in any other gears apart from 1st/2nd?

I haven't noticed it making any other sounds in the higher gears but I'll turn off the radio tomorrow and have a good listen for anything...

Starting with the easy/cheap-to-fix things, it could be a loose heat shield rattling.

A video recording of the noise uploaded to YouTube always helps to narrow things down in these situations.

Not a bad idea, I'll see if I can make a video when I get the chance

 

[uncle_rufus]

Update: I've been struggling to get a recording of the noise, every time I try to record it nothing seems to happen!! Strangely it seems to not happen for a while, several days even and I start to think maybe it's stopped but then it comes back...

Thanks for the other (serious) responses, the loose exhaust bracket sounds plausible but I wouldn't know what I'm looking for (I could at least find the exhaust so that's a start )