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I'm new to the r53 world coming most recently from a Miata. I hope to be up to speed on the platform and contributing soon. I've done some searching without luck for suggestions on what could be causing a groaning/sticking/creaking noise from the rear passenger side corner of my '05 mini cooper. The noise actually seems more pronounced on up travel and resonates throughout the cabin in a pretty significant way. Here's what I've checked
Sway bar bushings - removed, cleaned, and sprayed with white lithium grease
Hotchkis rear lower camber links - greased (except one inner port that has the nipple installed sideways - looks really greasy in there, though)
Exhaust hangers - wiggles, poked, prodded, all seems well
All other suspension components have been wiggled to check for play and condition of rubber. All seems well.
The car does have BC racing coilovers that I expect may be the culprit - the PO claims to have removed this corner to inspect and found nothing wrong. Any tips on where to check next?
The video makes it sound as if the jack is making noise, but I assure you it's the car as is particularly noticeable when lowering back down.
Thanks in advance
Upper strut mounts are a possibility, I guess next step would be to pull the coilover and cycle the suspension, which I suppose is feasible if not annoying. I do have an email out to BC asking for advice as it's possible that the upper strut mounts feel fine without a load. I'd like to have some confidence before throwing $75 towards a mount or $350 at a new coilover.
I don't believe sway bar links are my issue as they show no tears in the boots or significant play but I could remove to be certain. The sway bar does have some corrosion under the bushings but I think lubricating them as I did would still provide temporary reprieve.
I'll keep sticking my head under there for now. I thought maybe the coil was rotating on the perch, perhaps changing preload would eliminate that possibility.
Pulled the coilover today and inspected. For all the **** people give BC Racing I think these look pretty good for ~40k miles. Dirty, but good. Removed the preload and cycled them - all was well and the adjuster makes a noticeable difference (hadn't had a chance to play with it on the car yet). with the coil out I was able to cycle the remaining suspension components and found the noise to be isolated to the upper-inner control arm bushing. Some lubricating fluid seems to have quieted things down but I imagine I'll want to replace that bushing. Looks like a real PITA. Hopefully, this helps the next person diagnose.
Control arm bushings was going to be my next guess. The rear end groans on mine too but with winter and the holidays fast approaching I will wait till spring to work on mine. The front is all new so only fitting the back gets the same treatment,
I just replaced the rear control arm bushings with Powerflex on my '03 S with 170K + miles to fix a rear end clunking sound. The existing OEM bushings were still good, believe it or not, The clunking turned out to be an upper strut cupped washer installed upside down (by me) on one side. The rear control arm bushings don't seem to suffer the same accelerated wear as the fronts.
I may not have used the proper term, the trailing arms appear to be fine, rather the inner mount of the upper control arm appears to be the source of my noise. I'll probably start with some silicone lube to see how long the problem is alleviated and then just replace the whole arms with a stock replacement or something like this to avoid pulling and pressing new bushings. https://www.ebay.com/itm/17368889069...0AAOSw8nNhJvBi
Ah nice, good that you found the source. I bought a set from Silver Project for the bottom arms, my alignment guy was very happy with them after I lowered the car
So, the good news I've actually fixed the problem, the bad news is that it was not in fact the upper arms. Maybe without a real load there just wasn't as much of a noise which fooled me into thinking the lubrication had quieted the groaning. In any case, I found that the adjustable hotchkis arms had loose locking bolts. Groaning cleared up and snows mounted has the car pretty quiet. Except for how badly the snows rub... Loose adjusters probably caused the car to lose some camber but I still think raising the thing an inch or so would be in my best interest. It could probably stand an alignment at this point regardless.
Don't get me wrong, I like the way it looks, I just need the thing to be at least sort of practical. I don't think a little more ride height is going to slow me down at autox but it might get me to clear these snows without running tire-destroying camber
