Motor Mount Replacement in Beaverton, OR

Motor mount replacement is often the answer to a vibration that feels far more expensive than it is. Motor and transmission mounts hold the engine and gearbox in place, and stop you feeling them. They’re rubber, sometimes fluid-filled, bolted between the engine or transmission and the frame. Their job is to carry a heavy, vibrating, torque-twisting lump of metal while passing as little of that as possible into the car you’re sitting in.

What a Failing Mount Feels Like

A failing mount usually shows up as vibration at idle or a clunk when you shift.

• Vibration through the floor, seat or steering wheel: usually worst at idle, and often noticeably better as soon as you’re moving.
• A clunk or thud on gear changes, pulling away, or lifting off the throttle: the engine shifting on a broken mount and hitting its travel limit.
• A shudder as you pull away from a stop, which is where mounts get mistaken for a clutch problem.
• Visible engine movement: a healthy engine rocks slightly when you blip the throttle. A failed mount lets it lurch.
• Noise over bumps, as the drivetrain moves independently of the body.

Why Mounts Are Worth Ruling Out First

This is the part worth knowing before anyone quotes you for something larger. Our diagnostic chart lists broken motor mounts and broken transmission mounts as causes of clutch chatter: a shudder as the clutch engages. From the driver’s seat that feels much like a clutch problem, and a clutch replacement is a substantially larger job than a mount. Mounts are also named as a cause of a car shaking while driving, alongside tyres, brakes and suspension. They’re quick to check and inexpensive relative to what they can imitate, which is exactly why they belong early in a diagnosis rather than late.

Why Mounts Fail

• Age. The rubber hardens, cracks and eventually separates. It is a wear item on a long clock.
• Heat. Sitting in an engine bay for years does rubber no favours.
• Oil contamination. A leak above a mount will soften and destroy it far faster than age alone.
• Fluid loss. Some mounts are hydraulic: fluid-filled to damp vibration better than rubber can. When one leaks, it fails while often still looking intact.
• Load. Hard launches, towing and worn mounts elsewhere all put extra work through whichever mount is still doing its job.

Mounts are replaced individually: if one has failed, that’s the one that gets replaced. We’ll still look at the others while we’re in there, because a mount that’s been doing extra work for a while is worth knowing about before it becomes the next problem.

How We Check Them

Inspection is part of it: splits, separation, collapse and oil contamination are all visible once you know where to look. But a cracked mount can look perfectly acceptable at rest and give itself away the moment there’s torque through it, so one of the checks is loading the mount and watching how far the engine actually moves. Every job starts with a Digital Vehicle Inspection, so what we found reaches you as photographs of your own engine bay rather than a description. Mount wear is one of the more obvious things to see in a photo: a separated mount looks exactly like what it is.

What Motor Mount Replacement Involves

Access is what varies. Some mounts are straightforward; others sit behind exhaust or subframe components and take longer to reach. The engine or transmission has to be supported while a mount comes out, which is a routine part of the job. Mount replacement carries our 12-month / 12,000-mile warranty on parts and labor, and we’ll give you a written, itemized estimate before anything starts.

Getting It Looked At

If you’re feeling vibration at idle, hearing a clunk when you shift, or dealing with a shudder that hasn’t been pinned down, mounts are worth checking before anything larger is considered. We’ve specialized in clutches and manual drivetrains in Beaverton since 1995, and our technicians are ASE-certified, which means we see a lot of vibration complaints, and a fair number of them turn out to be mounts. Call MotorCar Doctors at 503-626-4810. If you’re not sure whether you’re chasing a mount or a clutch, our clutch diagnosis is built to tell those apart, and our driveline repair page covers the rotating components that can produce similar symptoms.