Yesterday, I was driving at a steady 70 MPH on the freeway and heard a very loud noise that sounded like "POCK!!!" It was so loud that it startled the crap out of me, and at first I thought something large had been thrown on my car by another vehicle, but I was nowhere near any, and there was no debris on the highway, and there was no loss of power, feeling in the steering, tires, or suspension, or anything else other than just the noise. There is no evident damage anywhere that I can find, thankfully, but I'm still scratching my head about this one. I'll be taking the car into my tech this morning for a look see underneath, but I'm wondering of any of you hsve experienced anything similar and what it may have been. Thanks! 😕

 

I hear something similar once in a (great) while. Road debris. A piece of rubber, a piece of metal, wood, a rock, even a plastic water bottle or aluminum can can come up and hit the underside (or the top side) of the car.

I've had to replace a couple of the underbody plastic panels that suffered from an impact from road debris. The plastic panel that runs along under my Turbo driver side door sill had a fist sized hole punched in it by something.

Years ago I hit some tire carcass debris with my Boxster and this broke the lower hose fitting on the driver's side radiator and cracked the bumper and took out the wheel liner too.

I have even watched as a rock gets tossed up by a vehicle ahead and come sailing towards my car to strike sheet metal or worse the windshield.

If you drive the car any it will get hit once in a while with road debris.

Just try to avoid following too close to vehicles ahead of you and stay the heck away from dump trucks and trucks towing/hauling road construction or farm equipment.

'course, I've had empty trunks hit some rough road -- like railroad track crossings -- and knock loose dried mud that then sends a bunch of dirt clods, rocks flying about.

For road debris you just have to try to keep an eye out and steer clear of anything.