Suspension Noise at 100k, What to Look For?

[Racer Boy]

It's the LCA creaking. Most of the time you won't be able to reproduce any noises by shaking the suspension yourself, because you can't duplicate the forces put on the parts by the weight of the car and going over bumps can. My car was making every noise in the book (bumping, creaking, groaning and squeaking). It had 145K on it, and everything was original and shot. BTW, raising the car and shaking things was a waste of time, since it wouldn't make any of those noises for me.

Rebuilding the entire suspension took care of all the noises.

How many miles on your car? If it's over 80K it's probably due for new LCAs, not to mention drop links and trailing arms. At that point, since you have to have it all apart, you may as well replace the shocks and all the other bushings as well.

Welcome to Porsche ownership!

[Gilles]

Originally Posted by Racer Boy

How many miles on your car? If it's over 80K it's probably due for new LCAs, not to mention drop links and trailing arms. At that point, since you have to have it all apart, you may as well replace the shocks and all the other bushings as well.

Welcome to Porsche ownership!

Yes but actually, on any car with over 80k you will need to replace the worn suspension components you are mentioning.

It is amazing the difference on the car that a new set of control arms, struts, bushings, etc., does for it, and it will be expensive, regardless of the brand.

However, 80k miles are many years of service and fun..

[SteelStroke]

Replace all your control arms. Oh..only if you have updated your struts.

[911monty]

Rick our cars are similar, mine is 98 w/98k and west coast driven. I recently changed the struts, Rears were in surprisingly good shape, 1 bad front, it had lost it's precharge but was not visibly leaking. With everything disassembled I inspected the lower control arms and they are still fine. I had replaced the rear upper control arms previously. The drop links were all shot and replaced at 78k. I upgraded the sway bars and replaced the bushings at 85k. At 100k I think you will need similar. As an FIO the struts are the most expensive and require the most disassembly, labor and tools. All other parts even the LCAs are bolt on and can be changed easily at a later date but an alignment will be required.