I have a 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, straight 6 auto trans, everything stock, 85,000 miles. There is a loud metallic rattling sound coming from somewhere under the hood when I drive, mostly when the road is a little bumpy. I don't know if it is the suspension or wheel bearings or something else. Can anyone help? Any ideas?

 

Check and see if the shock mounts are tight, hard to tell without a test ride.

 

sound like spare change rattling around kinda?
may be sway bar links

 

Heat shields on the exhaust, or the cat rattling. Climb under the jeep with a small hammer and hit the cat, and the heat shields to see i u can duplicate noise.

 

narrow it down. under the hood or axle?

 

try opening the door and listen. does it go away if you ride the brake?

 

its either coming from the axle or the suspension. how do you tighten the shock mounts?

 

Retreaded I have what sounds like a similar noise and it DOES go away when I ride the brake. Did you have a theory?

 

Your brake pads are rattling in their slides.

 

Alas it's not the brake pads, I replaced the pads since the noise began, but thank you for trying

 

Lol... that's like asking us to tell you what caught your Jeep on fire... we can't help you chase rattles and sounds... everyone can sit here and name part after part... eventually it'll be one of these parts... but only cause everything was named off for you to look at lol... your on your own... get under there and start lookin!

 

Thank you for your input huntingman, I'm sure everyone who posts here with a problem knows it's a bit of a longshot but the alternative is allowing a mechanic to spend £££s buying the wrong replacement parts until he randomly hits the right one so I hope you'll forgive me if I ask what you consider to be stupid questions in the hope that someone can actually help me figure out whats wrong - thanks.

 

Who told you to go buy a ton of parts... every single part on a vehicle can be deemed good or bad before replacing one way or another... everyone always says a stupid question is one not asked and I claim BS on that... how can you ask people on the other side of the country what is rattling under your Jeep? There's hundreds of parts on your Jeep... we could list every one of them... but truth of the matter is and common sense is you and only you must crawl under your Jeep and find it yourself... nobody Here can help you... unless they drove to your house and found your problem for you... otherwise everyone here is just going to name parts that can make noise... aka all of them...

Some instances you must help yourself...

 

Not trying to be a dick man... post above may come out that way if read wrong...

 

But you say the noise goes away when you step on the brakes, that tells me when you're putting pressure on the pads and holding them when braking the pads can not rattle = the brake pads are rattling because they are fitting loose on their slides. Pull a wheel off and see if there is any up and down movement of the brake pads. And "new" means nothing, even new puppies die.