My girl hit a massive pothole in her Cooper S and the front end started creaking after that. I disconnected the front stabilizer bar endlinks to rule out the front bushings because they have been a little noisy (which I changed couple of years ago with MOOG...don't use MOOG...they always made creaking noises) and the noise decreased, I THOUGHT, so I installed a set of VAICO (OEM) front stabilizer bar bushings today. Not exactly a 5 minute job, especially when on one's back.

After I changed the bushings the suspension is still creaking. Car has 170k miles complete new suspension about 25k miles ago. I've already replaced 2 control arms (broken inner ball joints) from the bad roads in DC since the 145k miles mark. The run flats are horrid and the suspension cannot handle the impacts with runflats.

Anyway...I pried on everything with a long breaker bar. Nothing looks broken. I pried the engine back and forth with the breaker bar too. To me sounds like a broken spring but I don't see any cracks and the suspension isn't dropping.

 

It sounds like the parts you put in the car are failing in VERY short order... what brand did you use for the control arms, struts and mounts? Also, if you got them from a no-name vendor, there's always a chance you got counterfeit "name brand parts".

One other possibility is that your swaybar bushings are squeaking. I'd shoot a little silicon (don't use petrol-based lube) onto the bushings right by the swaybar and see if it changes / eliminates the noise (probably temporarily).

 

Just changed those stabilizer bar bushings with VAICOs yesterday. Its not the cause.

I get my stuff from FCP Euro or ECS Tuning.

I blame my girl...I dont drive this pile of junk, I just fix it.

 

Could it be the spring moving in the rubber strut cusion?

 

Its the OEM spring in a Koni FSB strut. Not sure how that could happen but good thought.

I spoke to my buddy who is a full time mechanic who rebuilds crashed vehicles for resale. He said it sounds a lot like a bad strut mount.

Ive been using my wired Steelman Chassis Ears (not a panacea...very time consuming, don't always connect to the speaker consistently, DONT get the wireless ones, you'll never fit them anywhere) to narrow down the noise...I'm not done yet cause I only have 4 microphones and it takes a lot of time to set up, drive and then move them. Need to do one more round of testing.

I'm getting the most noise from the strut perch and the sway bar links (brand new...installed Saturday)...so maybe it really is the strut mounts...

 

Any chance that one of the rubber isolators on the top or bottom of the strut's coil spring has worked its way into the wrong position? There are a few ways to end up with "unusual results" when re-using the OEM spring - though that is the only "right" way to do it to keep from changing the ride height or handling (other than buying $$$ new OEM springs, I guess).

An aside - I was watching an episode of Scrapheap Challenge (the UK version of Junkyard Wars) and saw a guy remove the top bolt on a strut without a compressor... he was lucky to be standing off to the side when the mount shot across the shop like a cannonball... ;-)

 

I'll check it. Thx for the thought. I did notice that both bump stops are broken on the strut shaft. This car is at factory ride height BTW.

I came across this video. Squeaking strut shaft on 100k mile Toyota Tacoma suspension. Not my case but potential cause.

I've had KW suspension on other cars and they said never spray WD-40 on the seals. They used Kroil penetrating fluid on the car in on the video.

 

I installed ECS Tunings 4772395 Heavy Duty Sock mount, with sealed bearings in an attempt to stop this infernal creaking.

Little princess needs to drive the car and see if it fixed the issue.




The strut pads on right side ("pothole side" here in DC it seems) were in bad shape after 9 years. The OEM bump stop crumbled in my hands.




Old vs new:


The OEM mounts had cracks in them but not sure if they were damaged.

OEM unit has an open bearing with an oil slinger washer.

ECS doesn't indicate if you should install the 2 washers as per OEM...My guess is only the thicker washer is needed but I installed both because...well...?



The bump stops on both sides were destroyed and crumbling into tiny pieces.

More high quality parts from BMW.



ECS units vs OEM:



ECS units are thinner in profile me thinks. I should have measured.



@ECSTuning ya'll have to find better plastic guide pins. These things fall off way too easily.

I tried spreading the base but it didn't help.

 

Those mounts look nicer than the OEM ones. How do they ride?

Most people remove those plastic guide pins to get a little bit extra negative camber. Their main purpose in life is to help locate the mount during installation. If they fall out after torqued, no big loss.

 

Dont know...didn't even have the chance to drive the car myself.

Will report tonight.

The plastic guide pins are worthless, they just fall out if you blow on them. Not needed anyway.

 

I dont think the ECS mounts impact the ride quality in an appreciable way. Its so bad already I dont think strut mounts are gonna do you much worse unless you used "pillow ball type" (metal on metal).

Unfortunately the new strut mounts didn't fix the issue. The creaking noise is still happening but only after the car has been warmed up and the driven for 5-6 miles. Why this delay in the noise is really weird. It gets louder and louder the more you drive it until people outside the car start turning their heads as if youre driving some old hooptie.

But there is no performance issue...the car drives normally with the noise.

It sounds like the springs but I didnt notice any cracks in them. Im gonna pull the right and left engine mounts.

This is weird.

 

Check the torque on all of your sub-frame bolts. I had the same problem after repairs that required removal of the sub-frame. All of my bolts had backed out after I had torqued them. Re-torqued and the stupid noises are gone.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll do that.

Did your car need to" warm up" before the noise appeared?

 

I found one very loose nut on the inner ball joint on driver's side. It was not nearly tight enough. Need to drive now and PRAY that this fixes this infernal creaking.

You can see the exposed bolts after I torqued to spec...

Finger crossed!