I know this is a shot in the dark...but while I am chasing down the noise maybe someone had the same problem and could short cut my timeline.

Please check out the list of upgrades on the bottom. The PO did these. What happens is when driving on uneven roads every so often I hear a clunking sound from rear right side. On a smooth road no noise. What I have done so far is make sure everything is tight and the shocks adjusted. Exhaust hangers and all that are good. Next step is replacing rear strut bushings ( the originals are looking mushy).
The PO said when he bought the car he could not remember hearing the noise with the stock parts and that it showed up after the installation of the new parts ( I knew this b4 I bought the car). The only difference after the install was that he removed the rear seat (which I have). Dose anyone out there think the rear seat would add rigidity to the body and keep it from flexing...putting in the rear seat is not something I really want to do...I like the extra cargo space and one passenger is enough .

 

You did not say which corner of the suspension was clunking. If it is front, I would look into the camber plates, specifically the spherical bushings that are in them. When they get loose (wear) they make noise when they are unloaded. A bad shock can also do the same thing. It will take some investigating. Note that when the suspension is unloaded (on jack stands) it can be difficult to find looseness.

Your profile does not say anything about sway bars. If you have aftermarket (or even stock) sway bar links they can clunk when worn out. This happened to me in the rear. Chased a clunking noise for months until I found a loose sway bar end link by crawling under when the car was on the ground.

Ultimately it will take time to look at every possible cause until you find it. It will be the last place you look!

 

Rear stut upper bushing is my guess, had those go on my R52 and my R58:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...revisited.html

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ts-of-toe.html


You can get OEM ones that will last but will need replaced after another 30-50K (has a softer oem feeling or do the powerflex yellows (little more tight)and never do it again.


https://www.ecstuning.com/Mini-2006-...n/Shocks/Rear/

 

Upper bushing are ordered...will keep posting updates.
@Mike87 the sway bar was checked and all these parts have less than a 1k on them...noise is in the rear, so I will see if replacing bushing will do the trick.

 

What type of struts are installed on the vehicle? Something with adjustable damping / adjusters on top?

Reason I ask - there have been several posts here about similar noise and it was from over-tightening the top nuts to where the adjuster was knocking against the frame / chassis.

 

Well here is the deal...replaced the upper rear bushings (which were on there way out) still clunking noise. Just by luck heard the clunk when getting out of the car. Started jumping up and down on door jam while the wife isolated the noise to the right rear lower control arm...these were fairly new and were put on by PO. The noise is caused by the blue part moving where it is pinned. I think this is a poor design. Put on new h-sport adjustable arms and now the noise is gone (picture show left rear). I do not think the part is failing just that there is some play that causes the noise...If you switch them around same noise other side. Hope this helps the next person.

 

That sounds exactly like a failure to me: an assembly that has slackened its tolerance to a point where the device specifically designed to maintain an alignment specification can not accurately do so.

I'd contact Ireland Engineering and see what they have to say. Frankly I'm not excited to see this because I have one set of these arms on my car already, and it's been in the garage sitting too long to return them and upgrade...

 

Excellent point I will do that and post on what they had to say!

 

How is this for customer service ! FROM IRELAND ENG. I've never seen that type of play before in our parts. The threaded stud is held in place by a cotter pin. I'm sure there is a way to stop the play in the part, but kind of difficult to say without the part in question in front of me.

It is our policy, and the company you bought from probably has their own policy as well. If you purchased it elsewhere then it is the responsibility of that company to replace the part not mine. They may very well come to me and I will send the replacement to them. All of this because your money is not with me it is with another company. If you had an invoice number or another name I could look up for you then I will try again on my end. That's just how things work. Let's say you buy a bad watermelon at the grocery store, are you going all the way back to the farmer for a replacement?

So draw your own conclusion.

 

Are you serious? That was their reply? To draw metaphor to watermelons?

I suppose now that I’m glad I only have one part to sell and replace. That’s f..n terrible. IE in the VW world (different company, same initials) is awesome. (Integrated Engineering)

 

Wow That's some awesome customer service.

 

It's not the vendor's fault, except to the extent that they sell IE parts. Great F'n customer service there. I'm glad that I didn't buy their rear control arms when I was looking, they were one of the ones I was looking at..

 

I guess I will put them on ebay and see what I can get for them...maybe there is some one out there that had the same problem and did not replace there lower arm and is living with the clunk...