I'm really starting to get frustrated with my car right now as I just can't seem to get it fixed. Basically a few weeks ago I made a thread asking here what this popping could be. I figured it would be with the swaybars but was wondering if I had overlooked something. That would have been to grease them. Well this weekend I decided to spend 5 hours meticulously greasing all the bushings. I took the endlinks off and greased them(one of the fronts was so bad it wasn't moving), then took the bushings on the bar off and greased them. I made sure everything moved smoothly before bolting it all back up. I thought surely I had fixed the problem now. Apparently not. :unamused: So now I ask, what do I do? Does it have something to do with the torque on the bolts as I just got them tight, perhaps I should loosen them a bit? I didn't torque them specifically. The thing is that greasing them seems to have helped only marginally and it almost makes me wonder if it's something else. I just can't think of what it would be as going over speedbumps creates no unusual noise. However sometimes I can get it to pop just taking a tight low speed turn. Also these pops are loud and you can feel them in the car. I really just want my car to be quiet again. :hs:
I too am having a popping issue in the front. my popping is under braking and accelerating from a stop light mostly, and sometimes over speed bumps. I relubed the sway bar, replaced the ball joints and outer tie rods, replaced the control arm bushings with the Perrin ALK, and have Stance coilovers. I was hunting for the issue before replacing all those parts. it has gotten worse since installing all of the above, probably due to the lack of rubber in the upper strut mounts and harder control arm bushings. are you running an aftermarket sway bar?
Take the swaybar off completely, drive around and see if the popping continues. Or you could just take the endlinks off, but I don't like the idea of the bar ends just dangling there while driving. I had some spherical bearing endlinks and they made noise no matter what I did, so I just replaced them with KB bushing links
I suppose I can do that for the rear, too much of a pain for the front. And these endlinks I've had on there for a few years, it's not been but the past few weeks that I've had trouble with them. I think it has gotten worse though. I can make it pop by simply a swift change in direction and it's almost always popping on the passenger side of the car.
Don't interpret this as a dumb question but...are you sure you have everything torqued to spec down there? Usually suspension noise is from one of two things: poor lubrication or loose bolts, nuts, etc. For example, I had a nasty pop coming from my driver's side. I knew it was an endlink, but I couldn't figure out why it was doing what it was doing. I took the torque wrench to it to make sure it was proper and surprise surprise, it was waaay off!
No I didn't torque it, just tightened it by feel. I suppose I ought to start there when I get back to my tools this weekend.
Its the bearing in the middle of your strut top that allows the strut to rotate when you turn the wheel.
I see, but would that effect anything when the car is rocking side to side and not turning? And I can take turns without popping as long as they are smooth and not sudden. Also it seems at speed the noises are greatly diminished.
It's both, but both do not always make noise over the same bump. The rear seems more likely to pop, however the front will pop if it's bad enough. Can happen on either side as well, but seems to happen most on the passenger side first. I thought about a CV but they all look fine when I was under there.
I second Alex's experience, doing it "by feel" is not nearly as accurate as you want. Also, you really should try to remove the bar or at least the links and eliminate it as a possibility. I thought my struts were falling apart with all the noise I was having in the front end, so I took the bar off altogether and the noise went away - so it wasn't the struts.
Success! :wiggle: I just got done torquing everything pretty close to their specs and when I took a drive no pops or clunks! :ddirty: I dunno why I didn't do that last weekend, I guess after spending a few hours under there I was just ready to get done. Also last time I managed to fix this by loosening these bolts and it got worse by tightening them. Ah well, now I know and at least it's not something more serious!