Rear suspension sound: Strut mounts?

[olopezm]

Hello guys,

My GP has this knocking sound when going over bumps coming from the right rear wheel, I was bouncing the car up and down this morning and seems to be coming from near the trunk. I did a search on the forum and found it can be worn out strut mounts. I've uploaded a video with the sound, during the first time I'm pushing the car up and the sound is more noticeable, during the second time I'm pushing down. The volume might be a little low, I don't know what happened with my phone

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/8840/z40.mp4

Will I have to replace only the mounts or will I need to replace the struts too. I hate the fact that early in november I replaced the trailing arms myself and got a 4 wheel alignment done; and the sound started 3 weeks after that. I guess it must be only a coincidence. I don't know if the struts have been replaced ever, but realizing the previous owner was a cheap bastard (he welded back together the old trailing arm that broke ) I don't think so...

Thanks in advance for any input.

Best regards,

Oscar.

[BNaylor]

Whats your mileage? The OE GM struts get bad or worn after around 70K miles. Hard to tell by your sound clip but the rear upper strut mount should be replaced and in conjunction with new struts. Same is applicable to the front end with the difference being the upper strut mount is also a load bearing.

[Scrapper]

are the rubbers at top that go's around the spring on strut? or maybe a spring broke on strut.

[olopezm]

Thanks to both of you,

I really forgot to post the miles: 66,800mi. the rubbers are in place although they seem a little worn, specially at the inner part where the strut threaded part goes into the trunk area; the springs seem to be fine. The car bounces a little when I push it down, it's like:

Push down, car goes up, car goes a little bit down and up again and stays.

According to Bob's comment and mileage I guess it's about time to replace them, I was expecting to be a cheap fix but I guess it's not (money is tight these days).

1.- How hard is it to replace them?
2.- Will I need any special tools other than a spring compressor?
3.- Anybody knows if autozone rents the spring compressor?

I guess OEM struts will be the way to go since I've read many negative comments about aftermarket.

One final question:

4.- Other than the sound, is there any potential risk if I keep driving the car?

Best regards,

Oscar.

[BNaylor]

Its up to you on aftermarket or OE GM/Delco. The KYB GR2s on my GTP work fine.

Autozone normally rents strut coil spring compressors.

[olopezm]

Thanks again Bob,

I'll replace them ASAP; can I still drive the car for a while or is there any other potential issue?

Two more questions:

Will I have to replace the boots too or are these reusable?
I'll definitely have to get another wheel alignment right?

Best regards,

Oscar.

[BNaylor]

Unless you see any suspension component detached or broken it will just be noisy. I get minor rattling/knocking periodically from one of the rear strut mounts in my '99 Regal when it gets cold out but the noise disappears when the weather warms up. I plan on replacing the rear struts and mounts on it later in the spring since they have over 180K miles on them.

Wheel alignment should always be checked when you do a strut job. Good luck!

Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo.

[tblake]

What do you mean by Boots Oscar? The plastic thing on the inside of the strut? Probably dont need to be replaced.

Otherwise you can check the rear stabilizer and links.

And i'd have to agree to stay away from the cheapos. I used them and they went a day then started making this terrible creaking sound. I chased the sound around for a long time thinking "the struts are new so its not them". Finally got fed up and replaced the struts again and it fixed the problem.

[olopezm]

Thanks to both of you for your time!

Originally Posted by BNaylor

Unless you see any suspension component detached or broken it will just be noisy. I get minor rattling/knocking periodically from one of the rear strut mounts in my '99 Regal when it gets cold out but the noise disappears when the weather warms up. I plan on replacing the rear struts and mounts on it later in the spring since they have over 180K miles on them.

Wheel alignment should always be checked when you do a strut job. Good luck!

Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo.

OK, I can live with that for a while . Maybe it's the same case as your regal, it's been colder than usual here and the noise started nearly at the same time cold weather started (not as cold as you guys LOL). With nearly 70k miles I'll replace them anyway as you suggested Bob.

Originally Posted by tblake

What do you mean by Boots Oscar? The plastic thing on the inside of the strut? Probably dont need to be replaced.

Otherwise you can check the rear stabilizer and links.

And i'd have to agree to stay away from the cheapos. I used them and they went a day then started making this terrible creaking sound. I chased the sound around for a long time thinking "the struts are new so its not them". Finally got fed up and replaced the struts again and it fixed the problem.

Yeah, those are the ones I'm talking about Tim. I was being lazy to launch VMWare, boot into windows and be able to check the diagram and the proper name, "boots" was the first word I could think of .

The rear stabilizer and links seem to be fine, I inspected them when I got the alignment done early in november, I will check them again when I lift the car, just in case. I checked yesterday and the noise does comes from the trunk area and the upper strut mount, I'm 100% the struts got the be the problem, I recall being the same noise when I got the front struts replaced at the shop about two years ago. I'll get OEM's or KYB's like Bob's in case I can find them here.

So this is it, I'll make sure to post back when I replace the struts probably next month.

Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo para ustedes también!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for both of you too!

Best regards,

Oscar.

[tblake]

Originally Posted by olopezm

Yeah, those are the ones I'm talking about Tim. I was being lazy to launch VMWare, boot into windows and be able to check the diagram and the proper name, "boots" was the first word I could think of .

Vmware? I played around with that a while ago. Just for nestolgia purposes of running Ms-Dos and Windows 3.1 again to reminisce of how crappy it was.

What you using VMware for? Are you running some platform of linux, or a MAC? (just curious)

[olopezm]

Yeah I have a Mac, I really love it. I'm a linux user too but I used to work with it at my previous job.

When I was at college I had to use windows all the time for programming (C, C#, labview, etc.) and electronics design. That's why I used to have a dual boot system and was able to run windows natively.

After that I took some time to run the same tasks using vmware and the result was the same, so I finally decided to kill the winbugs partition and become a full mac user.

Oscar.

[tblake]

Macs are super sleek. The thing I like about them is they dont get viruses. I'd have one now but they are too spendy for my broke @$$. I just decended to buy a dell D630. Got it 2 years ago when my old dell bit the bullit finally.

[olopezm]

I really love my mac they might be expensive but trust me, you get what you pay for; let me tell you a quick story about mine:

When I was in networking class at college, I needed 4 computers (two clients, two servers) for my project but they were already taken by my classmates. So my solution was to emulate all 4 computers with my macbook . I used mac OS as client 1, windows XP as client 2 and two installations of windows server for a DHCP and DNS server each and all were RUNNING IN THE SAME LAPTOP (3 instances of vmware and the native OS). With the first two instances of vmware the laptop was hardly struggling, it was only until the third instance that I noticed the system was slowing down but I could still work!. There is no way I could have done that with a windows pc. Some of my classmates tried to do the same but their pc's started crashing as soon as they tried to open the second virtual machine. I have 4GB RAM and each instance was running with 768MB of RAM.

So final note, Macs rock! LOL. Dell and Toshiba are the only brands I like and trust for windows PC's, I used to have a toshiba qosmio before this macbook and I loved that one too, I still keep it and use it occasionally; and had a dell before that too.

I still think this is a good system for a 3 year old computer, I hasn't leftt me down ever, as you already said you don't get viruses and the thing that makes me happier is I don't have to format it every 6 months because of clutter and slow performance. In fact I've only formatted my mac once and only to upgrade to the newest OS.

Oscar.

[tblake]

The virus thing sells me. I'm just afraid to try and learn a new OS. I've got all I can do to figure out my old school verizon flip phone. Which I am still getting used to even after owning it for 2 years. LOL!

[BNaylor]

Originally Posted by tblake

I've got all I can do to figure out my old school verizon flip phone. Which I am still getting used to even after owning it for 2 years. LOL!

Verizon flip phone?

Darn Tim at least catch up with us old folks with smartphones. Nothing like the Droid X running Android 2.2 and all these apps I'll never use in my life time.

BTW - I heard the new Windows Phone 7 is a big flop and won't help Microsoft get any real increased market share. Unless you like going to the "cloud".