Front end squeak

[T-Flip]

What the hell is this man

Outer tie rods are new (less than 10k miles), sway bar links are solid (moog), and the upper control arm has been replaced also (mevotech). That narrows it down to a ball joint or one of the 100 bushings on this one side, or the inner tie rods.

The ball joint was replaced once after a failure by the tow man a while back, I don't know what kind of part he used but it shouldn't squeak like this if it's been replaced. What is the typical lifespan of these things? You can see me put grease on there through the zerk fitting to see if that was the culprit but it's still squeaking.

Pulling on the wheel, it has no play in any position. It only squeaks if the car is on the ground under load, and is louder at low speed like in a parking lot or coming out of a stop sign. The ball joint looks good visually, no tears in the boot or anything.

I have a moog ball joint sitting around but I don't want to do a job that doesn't need to be done, I want to be sure about this before I throw parts at it.

 

[joegr]

Well, I had over 222K on my 04 with all original ball joints when I got rid of it. I have over 220K on my 06. Of course not everyone is so lucky there. The design goal on the factory ones was 150K miles. I don't know why so many think that it is so great to have the grease fittings on the aftermarket ones. How many of those go over 150K miles?

Anyway, get a mechanic's stethoscope. With that you will be able to narrow down for sure where the noise is coming from. Harbor Freight has them for $5. They aren't good ones, but good enough to handle this.

Mechanic's Stethoscope

 

[T-Flip]

Ball joint is fine, my driver's side is actually all original at 250k miles. I wonder why I always get problems on my passenger side..

I've found the issue, I got someone to replicate the noise by turning the steering wheel back and forth, got on the floor and carefully felt for vibration in the different suspension components. The more vibration you get the closer you are to finding it. Turns out it's a lower control arm bushing closest to the front, you can see it in the bottom left corner of the video where it has a lot of movement.

There has to be a way to replace just the bushings on these, it seems like such a waste to throw out a perfectly good control arm just because the rubber is shot.