I have noticed a squeak in the front suspension when I hit bumps at low speed (i.e. speed bump). Does anyone else have the same experience? I've never experienced this in other cars I've owned, but with such a short wheelbase, I figured this might just be something I have to live with?

 

My 08 MCS does that also. It's more of a cross between a squeak and a scrape. Iv'e had the dealer and an indie shop check it out but they could find nothing out of whack.

 

This is just a wild guess, but you might want to look at the sway bar mountings, drop links, etc. I mention this because we had a Mazda many years ago that gradually developed a painful grating noise from the front corners, and it turned out to be the sway bar drop link ball joints that had gone dry.

Spridget

 

Thanks for the input. I'll have to have it checked out next time I take it in. I just thought it'd be strange to have anything needing to be re-greased at this point, being not even 6 months old.

 

I get this as well in at certain times. I had the same noise years ago on a Olds. It is more of a crunch noise. It turned out to be the bushings rubbing in a certain way. Olds replaced the rubber bushings with teflon ones and it went away. I suspect when the mini's need replacing I'll go to a harder formula bushing as well.

 

It's strange, I didn't notice it until I moved into a city with a ridiculous amounts of speed bumps/potholes and now the squeaking is prevalent enough to drive me nuts. After another short drive today its time to take it into the dealer.

 

I had the same problem; a low-speed squeak that was irritating. I took the car to the local suspension experts, and they put 6 microphones on it and drove it around, but could not pinpoint the source. In the end, they lubricated the sway bar end links, and the squeak went away. That was about three months ago, and it has not returned.

 

Well had the MINI in at the shop this morning and just my luck, on the way it starts raining. So when we went out on a test drive, we couldn't replicate the squeaks. Have to try again in a few weeks.