I have the same issue, but had success in dealing with it.

Follow these steps when parking

1. Foot on brake (medium pressure)
2. Put in P
3. Pull your parking brake noticeably higher than you may think it needs to go. Closer to 60° than 40° angle imo.
4. Foot off brake

And that's it. Don't mess with it until you need to move it again.

 

Okay, I'm thinking possibly the front left CV joint...now it's doing it when starting to move from a stop also. Hoping it's covered under my extended warranty which covers driveline parts. Still can't believe it's doing this at 25k...had a Mazda Protege years ago that I think they went bad around 75-100k...

 

It could be motor or transmission mounts. Have someone put the car in drive and reverse while watching the motor. If a mount is bad the motor should rock in conjunction with the clunk. Also in gear with emergency brake applied and foot on the brake give it some gas. This will also produce rocking and clunking if a mount is bad. Generally when cv axles go bad they make noise when turning left or right.

 

I had the windows down the other day and it seems to be coming more from the left front rather than the transmission area. I will do that test you mentioned Rav4system3, thanks for that information!

 

My '08 Limited has done that since day one but only when the engine is cold and the revs are up due to the cold start. That's with both transmissions, the original whiner, and the reman one. Nice click comes from left front when accelerating briskly from a stop.

 

Mine does it no matter what temp the engine is...cold or warmed up.

I also did the car parked with it in park, ebrake on and on the brake pedal while pressing the gas. There was a slight sound, but not the same click/clunk sort of sound. Still thinking CV joint. I've read that it can start subtly like this, then get louder in turning, etc. as it wears.

 

Whelp, it's definitely getting worse...now I'm hearing it when accelerating/decelerating when lifting off or hitting the gas pedal quickly. Will be trying to get it checked out soon. Will update findings here ;-).

 

Please do.

 

Did you have luck fixing it??

 

*UPDATE!* Not a great one, but at least some information.


When I took the Rav to the dealer for the 30k service, I asked about the noise. I don't normally go to the dealer for maintenance, but they had a great price for this service, so I took advantage of it. I figured since they were a dealer, they might know what this sound could be attributed to. The service rep said they had a look and saw no issues, but that since my brake pads were getting low, they could be causing the sound.



I've never had a car that clunked from the brake pads getting low, but what do I know?



So fast forward to a road trip I took up the east coast from Florida to Virginia. I hadn't had a chance to service the brakes before I left, but my brother was kind enough to do the fronts for me (for cost of parts which was $35...WOO HOO!!!). He also mentioned that he saw nothing wrong and that brakes could cause it.



So, now I'm back home and it's STILL happening...I guess if it gets bad enough, we'll be able to find the source, but it's still annoying. The car only has 35k at this point, so I feel like it's odd to have a mechanical issue such as this, but at least it doesn't seem major...yet.

 

Hello FramerKat, is this noise still happening? Or were you able to fix this issue?

 

Follow up to this post...apparently after the breaks wore in, the sound stopped! I actually forgot about it because it disappeared, but have been reminded recently about it. So, apparently it was the front brakes after all. ;-)

 

I searched and found nothing specifically to my situation. About 50% of the time, when I shift to reverse from park or drive (flat surface, warm Florida weather, car at a complete standstill), a noticeable "clunk" sound comes from the transmission area of the vehicle. I will try to get a video clip of it happening, but wanted to see if there were any other experiences of this here. It is a 2014, FWD, and about 25k miles.

Just to let you know that i've been searching for some info in regards the issue you are having. Please do share you info.

 

See my comment just above yours here. I just added the information to my original post for others to see quickly also.

 

I bought a low mileage one owner RAV 2018 and the first couple of days the "clunk" happened as a lot of you said, about 50% of the time. I asked my Toyota Service Rep about it and he of course didn't know what I was talking about. He couldn't get it to "thunk". Anyway, now that we've had it for a month, the thunks seem to have disappeared. Maybe it is was from sitting on the used car lot a while. I hope it is forever gone!