My 2K has started exhibiting an annoying symptom as of late... While turning through a left curve, usually at a moderate speed with a fairly tight turn, the front right exhibits a repetitive squeaking noise. I'm not sure if it's keyed to the wheel's spinning or the suspension operation.
It does not do this at all while going through a right-turning curve, no matter how fast or hard I'm going. A gentle left-turning curve doesn't seem to do it, but if I go faster or turn harder there's a certain point where it starts happening.

Ideas? Perhaps the rubber insulator on the bottom of the spring could be coming off and causing the spring to squeak against the strut bottom perch? (I never put any adhesive on it when I changed struts early last ye ar...)

 

dude mine does the same thing. When I go down the parking garage ramps and take the turns it did that. Th service advisor witnessed it but the mechanic could not get it to do it again.

 

Sprillis --

I forget what you have on your car, but if memory serves you are dropped and on aftermarket struts, yes?

Mine does the same, intermittantly.
I've been told it's the sway bar bushings, and to replace them with aftermarket jobs. Haven't done it, as it's not THAT bad.

Honestly, the thing that's REALLY pissing me off about my suspension (progress/illumina) is the mild clunking that's coming from the right front strut.
NOBODY knows what the *** it is, or how to diagnose/fix it. SO irritating!!!
I think it's in the top hat / bearing, or something of the like.

Also, i have this annoying metallic pinging sound that's only sounds from slow acceleration in the right front wheel. On/off the gas, it sort of makes a pinging/grinding sound. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was the wheel bearing - but I don't truly believe it. It's getting slowly worse.
A guy on the g35 site told me that he had similar problem, and that he RE-TORQUED his lugs to proper spec, the sound went-away.
Hmmmm......

If anybody has a solution for the squeaking issue -- please post it.

gr

 

Aftermarket struts, STOCK springs (no drop, stock wheels, stock size tires)

Plus, nobody makes aftermarket swaybar bushings for our cars do they? (I don't recall Energy Suspension making swaybar bushings, just control arm/rear trailing arm bushings, along with motor mount inserts)

 

I want to see if anyone has any other ideas.
First thing I intend to do is check out the bottom of the spring/strut, and if the rubber's coming off I'll score some rubber adhesive, a spring compressor, remove the strut, compress the spring and reapply the insulator with adhesive (decompress spring/reinstall strut/torque everything down/test it out)
If that doesn't do anything, the swaybar bushings could be suspect I guess. If they're wearing out you'd be able to see a gap in the bushings though right?

 

You'd think so, but I don't think it's that simple.
I'm no expert on suspension. All I know is that I love the handling I get from my set-up, but I HATE it as a daily driver. I'm mostly in the city, and it's getting annoying.
I am SO close to going back to stock, it's not even funny.

The thing that kills me about that thought, is the drop. Back to 4x4 SE....ugh, I can't stand it.

I thought I had the spring isolator problem as well, but I took it apart last time to find that it WAS NOT the culprit. Sleeves were in place, and not the cause of the noise.

This is one of those suspension gremlins that nobody seems to have a conclusive fix devised for....

I've been half considering stock springs with illumina struts.....not THERE's a science experiment!!!

gr

 

Wheel bearing maybe??????

 

A friend of mine helped me isolate it. I think it's coming from the left rear suspension, or at least the rear suspension to begin with. I'll have to inspect it later.

 

check the ball joint for excessive "play"

 

In the rear?? I think not

 

Did you ever find out what was wrong? I'm having the same problem now =(.

 

Hey GHOSTRIDER17, I get the same f*cking noise in my right front strut. It only happens when I'm turned all the way to the right. I got rid of it by spraying the bottom of the spring perch with silicone lube spray, and spraying that all over the swaybar endlinks. The noise has been gone immediately after spraying the stuff down. We could not figure out why it did this. That strut assembly was put in and removed four times with no luck. So when all else fails, hit it with some lube and it saved the day because the noise was embarrassing.

 

spirilis - did you find out what's causing the squeaking?

 

common problem, eas sol'n:

almost everyone with a dropped max will at some point experience this problem (i did too)
alot of times it sounds like youre draggin a coathanger along or somethin...

basically, when you turn the wheels in either direction, theres a little limiter bump on the rack by the tie rods that ensures that you dont turn too far---this bump hits a little groove in part of the chassis. Maxima's use a plastic cap on the end of this bump to make sure you the metal bump doesnt grind against the metal in the chassis. Alot of times, this little plastic cap breaks off though....

When you drop the a max (or any car, but then again why would you own any other car?) this little limiter bump gets misaligned with the chassis' groove, and without that little plastic cap, it grinds along the chassis, tryin to get in the groove. so its basically a problem you have wid the lack of a bump-n-grind situation : )

anyways, the best way to deal wid it if you dont wanna go out trying to find the little plastic thing is actually just to grease it up (or lube it up). So now you know why screamindman's junk worked. when you lube it up, the bump gets in the groove, and you dont gotta worry bout grindin. the sad part is im tryin so hard to be technical and not make puns but it just sounds so tyte. muahahaha


heres a diagram of what i mean

the bump is represented by -
the groove is represented by >

aligned (stock):

|
-> the bump hits the groove perfectly
|

misaligned (dropped):

-|
> the bump grinds against a different part of the chassis
|

 

so this problem cause a sound when you turn all the way in a certain direction? reason i am askign i becasue when i make a right trun with the sterrign wheel all the way to teh right and start to go, i get this grinding noise and i cant figure out where it is comming from. it is making me mad. it only does this when i turn right and with the steering wheel turned all the way to the right. i should go check this.

 

ya sometimes it will only make the noise in one direction because there is one plastic cap/bump for the right and one for the left....ill see if i can find somethin online that will better explain it

 

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/...power-rack.jpg

under the word "pump" you see a little extension of the rack...thats pretty much analagous to the "bump" i was referring to. the rack is also extended on the other side.


the way steering in max's work is if you turn all the way in one direction (lets say to the right in the diagram) the extension cant go any further to the right when it hits the wall of the chassis. usually theres a groove in the chassis and a little plastic cap on the extension to prevent grinding, but chances are the cap broke off (most of them do), and the extension is now hitting another metal part of the chassis. so all you have to do is lube it up, and the grinding will stop

remember, if you still have the plastic cap on the left side, but you dont on the right side (in the diagram), you will only hear grinding if you turn all the way left

 

You're right... ES doesn't make sway bar bushings for the Maxima...

 

I know this is obvious, but is the spring sitting perfectly in the perch? And is the end of the spring where the isolator is sitting at the lowest point of the perch? Just checking, because that was my problem; the end of the spring was a little bit off and had some play, and once the spring was aligned right, the subtle knocking sound went away.

 

Interesting.
So it really sounds like this isn't anything to worry about, just annoying.


My other problems persist. Latest report from the stealer claims that my strut hat and assembly aren't in the mount correctly, and need to be re-aligned.
Jesus -- I'll have to have it taken-apart AGAIN. This is the third time.
I still get that little pinging sound in the front on-off throttle in first (window down) and the slight clunking when traveling over undulating pavement.

Oh the humanity!!

My kingdom for a GOOD mechanic.

gr

 

Oh yeah, one more thing... if you have bumpstops, the knocking will actually be louder...







I kid... is joke... didn't think I'd forget our little debate did ya?

 

dude ghostrider17...i live in the atl area too..you should check out my mechanic....he is amazing, but he dont speak english.......haha but ill get his info fo you n junk if you want

 

but my sound happens when I'm making a slight turn, so the wheel isn't turned until it stops. Like in the original post. It happens when I start a turn and then stops when I in the middle of the turn. I can also hear it when I'm making lane chanes, so it's just at the beginning when the front left side gets compressed. Anyone have an idea on what's wrong?

 

That is good joke......FOR ME TO POOP ON!!!!!

Not forgotten, you bastage! Good to hear from you~~!

gr

 

hook it up, YO!

I'm ready to pay for someone to get this MF done RIGHT.

I've got a buddy who knows a guy, works at Inifinit up in GWInett -- thinking about trying that route.

I don't trust the stealer as far as I can push my car up a hill.
Corksuckers.

gr

 

masterav--

now that sounds like a spring/strut problem. could also be related to simple alignment problems. when you turn (esp with stock springs) the car tends to lean. what i would do is go out to your car and try just pushing up and down on each corner of the car above the tires. try to get each corner bouncing 1 or 2 times. see if it makes the noise, and if it does, its most likely a shock/strut problem and not a steering/alignment problem

 

so if i trun right and i get this sound, which side should i look on? the left side right?

 

hmmm as i recall, its not actually like in that pic i showed (i was just usin that to show you the concept)...im pretty sure that if its a squeak turning right, you need to look at the right front area (passenger side)

if you jack up the car completely, you should be able to turn both wheels just by turning them (without the steering wheel), and i would have a look at the right side

 

well i know what you are talking about exactly. the plastic cap is a stopper basically so you wont turn the tires all the way. the stopper hits the lower control arm. so if the caps breaks or pops of, the metal will rub into the lower control arm and make a sound. the only thing i am worried about is when i got the car on jackstands and i started it and turned the steering wheel left and right, theer was no sound. maybe because there wasnt a load? i am going to check this out though because the sound is making me go nuts and i cannot all the way to the right without hearing this sound.

 

ya prolly cause there wasnt as big of a load....couldnt hurt to just grease up both sides....

but i am pretty sure the grinding noise will be centered at the right side

 

I got the same problem, only on left turns going up buildings, except its coming from the interior, and it sounds like a mouse squeak almost....its rather strange if you ask me

 

haha, I still have this problem. Only it's become 10x more annoying and it is very consistent now. I've isolated it to the left rear strut. I can hear a faint squeak-ish "bubbling" sound when I lift the left rear part of the car. It only seems to happen when the strut is mostly decompressed--as it is whenever you make a hard left turn.

In addition, I have an occasional "mouse squeak" type noise coming from the general rear too... don't think this is coming from the struts necessarily though. My poor Max is probably falling apart :P

I noticed other threads talking about greasing the strut rod. I may try spraying some silicone lubricant onto the left rear strut rod. I noticed the protective boot is broken back there. Whenever I do change struts, all the rubber boots are getting replaced.

 

I had the same problem with my Max right after I bought it from the dealer, I thought it was the same plastic bump stop and i brought that up to the dealer, and turns out it was a bad hub and bearing on the right front wheel. And since I had 56K miles, they replaced it under warranty for free.. i just hope if the left one blows out, its before the 60k warranty runs out.

 

Sorry to revive a dead thread, but this describes my exact problem. When turning left, I hear a squeak-squeak-squeak from the right front. When I'm going slow I have to turn pretty far to hear it, but at 30+ MPH I can hear it when I change lanes.

It can't be the bump stop, I NEVER turn my wheel that far to begin with, and it couldn't happen with slight turns anyway.

For the DIY inclined, http://www.motorvate.ca/mvp.php/704.

 

In my case the culprit was this: http://borriss.smugmug.com/photos/328936949_26xF4-O.jpg
Details here:http://forums.maxima.org/5th-generat...t=#post6504371
(post #10)

 

i had a problem like this also.. Mine were bushings.. check your axles also to see their condition.

 

I have the same problem...squealing when I turn the wheel all the way to the right. Aftermarket schocks. struts, springs.

 

Might be that plastic bearing in your front strut mount assy! It's probably dry as a bone! If you lube it use white lithium grease don't be to conservative.....