[MikeMcMo]

Hi everybody,

Thanks for your various responses, providing the right mix of wisdom, experience, and perspective.

Yes, everything in the frunk is cranked tight, battery included. Thanks for thinking of that- I only thought of it after an hour of driving time with the klunking, and worse than that, when the lightbulb went on, I remembered having left something loose in there and was psyched to remember that, then bummed to find out it had nothing to do with it.

The onion peeling/crapshoot is a good way to look at it. The mechanic described to me the process by which they determined there was play in the bushing or bearing at the top of the strut, by using a pry bar, exerting pressure, etc. They did that after the initial repair, without disassembling anything, which makes me think they could have also done that *before* the erroneous repair, but didn't.
I believe my mechanics are honest, but perhaps in this case they were hasty and made the wrong diagnosis. And I'm asking for help because they are busy busy busy and I only ever think of the best course of action and the best thing to say 2 days later. It seemed like a repair they could handle and the nearby Porsche dealers are known to be competent but way overpriced and would have probably elected to replace the entire front end, and the nearest indy is over an hour away. I don't know that the parts that were replaced were unduly worn at all. (I kept them in hopes of taking a metal sculpture class down the road, and meanwhile maybe a mechanic will drop out of the sky and tell me either they were fine or they were shot.) I don't know what they did before the erroneous repair to make them think these parts were the source of the rattle. The strut mounts don't appear to be the problem, but they will be right up in there for the proposed bearing/bushing replacement.

I take it as the price of admission that this car, any car, will require maintenance. I do not aspire to, and will not purport to having everything in this car in showroom condition, and the next owner will know that before putting money down, and will be told to expect to be paying for periodic maintenance. But hopefully not any unnecessary maintenance. So if these parts had another 5 years in them but were replaced prematurely, better that the owner in 2023 A.D. should have done that, not me.

Woody, know anybody small enough to ride in the frunk and listen? I guess I could take the frunk lid off while they sit there, to be reasonable. The mechanic is reasonably certain (this time) that it is the bearing/bushing under the strut plate. We'll see!