New Suspension Problem. Sounds Bad. Any Ideas?
 

I will upload a video clip for sound later today or tomorrow.

Basically. I drove 5 minutes from my hotel to a parking lot. Parked the car in a parking lot where I left it for 8 hours.

Got back in, Started reversing out of the spot, And I hear spring squeaking noise and loud popping clunks at the same time. I continued to drive for an hour like that including on the highway at 65mph.

At all speeds, the springs kept making squeaking noise and the I kept hearing clunking noise coming from the front driver side wheel.

I can replicate the squeaking sound with the car off by shaking my car, but the clunk noise only happens while the car is moving.

A weird new development.

I took the wheel off to try to find what is wrong. Couldn't find anything. Put the wheel back on, the noise was gone. I drove around and nothing. It was back to normal.

If anyone still has a good guess to what the sound was, let me know.

Can't tell for sure but, it could have been a stone or something. I had that happen to our first Boxster one night. We were literally half a block from a Firestone Service center that had just started staying open until 10PM. What luck. We were scared and couldn't guess what it could be. It was a relief to find just a stone lodged in the brakes. Plucked it out and put the wheel back on. NO Charge ! Even better.

Noise is back. It is a Spring type noise. It is Not a stone stuck in the brake pad. Seems like everyones explanation on these forums for any noise coming from the front is a rock in the brake pads.

I recorded the noise on my phone while I was shaking the car up and down.

Sound File is here. Please Listen to it.

Suspension Sqeak - YouTube

If that link does not work, try this:
Suspension Sqeak - YouTube

Maybe it is Shock Absorbers? It happens when I accelerate, decelerate, turn, or go over a the slightest bump or when I get in and out of the car.

It may be your ball joints drying out. Consensus has been to replace them, or inject some new lubricant with a syringe to quiet them. It would be nice if the joints had grease zerks on them like trucks; with regular greasing they would last forever. Just make sure you check for play in your suspension vertically and horizontally by rocking your front tires back and forth while the car is jacked up. If you find significant movement or hear a knocking noise, then they need to be replaced. Search for suspension creaking and you'll find the threads that discuss this.

Already checked that. No vertical or horizontal play at all.

Strut has orange rust dust around it while the strut on passenger side is clean. Maybe it's the strut or bushing.

There is a bearing that suports the top of the spring that allows the suspension to rotate with the wheel, the spring noise you are hearing is the spring trying to overide the bad bearing.

It's actually pretty simple to replace them, you have to remove the nut on top of the strut (with the suspension loaded), then slowly raise the car until the strut shaft is out of the top hat, then you can remove the bad bearing from the top of the spring and install a new one.

Since one side is bad the other side should not be too far behind, I would replace both of them and then get an alignment.

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Well I just got a real mechanic check it out for free at Sears Auto so I don't see whats the problem with asking online.

Mechanic says its the strut and recommends replacing the spring along with it.

I'm thinking its time for the ROW M030 or something aftermarket.

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Yeah that's true.

I went to Sears again so they can get their German car mechanic to look at it. When I went there in the morning, they just visually looked at it quickly since they were busy and only had 1 mechanic there.

The mechanic said I need Lower Left Control Arm and Bushings. They recommended replacing both sides at the same time. They will call me tomorrow to give me the quote. I might just do it myself. Parts are $200 per control arm I think. All the shops around me charge $90-100 per hour labor. Hopefully I can find the parts cheaper.

They test drove my car for a mile and said they think the clunking over bumps could be a strut or sway bar going bad. They were not sure.

Sounds like what I went through last summer. The squeaking was the lower control arms that took forever to chase and the clunk is likely the upper strut bearings. Good luck.