Squeaky Explorer 2003

[Ares91]

When you go over a small speed bump, the car sounds like you are jumping on some old squeaky bed springs. It is really loud. Can't one oil or lubricate these joints? Surely this isn't normal. It has had it's 60,000 km checkup.

[shorod]

Welcome to the forum!

Ford has had problems in the past with outer tie rod ends and ball joints getting dry and noisy. I haven't experienced this much on vehicles newer than 1999 model year, but I'm not a professional that deals with cars daily either.

What I do to troubleshoot similar noises is to use a small pick and poke a small hole in the rubber dust boot of one suspension component in the area of the noise. I then insert the straw from my aerosol can of white lithium grease into the hole and give the joint a quick squirt of grease.

With the grease inserted, I operate the steering and bounce the vehicle a few times to see if the noise changes. If it temporarily goes away, I have my suspect part and replace it. If it doesn't change, then I move on to the next suspect part and do the same until I find the joint that stops the noise when lubricated.

Keep in mind this will only be a temporary fix and your best bet would be to replace the part with a quality aftermarket part.

-Rod

[Johnny Mullet]

I highly suspect the swaybar bushings have dried up. This is actually a common issue. You can remove and lube them up or just replace them if the have hardened really bad.

[rivguy]

I'm with the mullet - have only done a handfull of hard parts on this year - but a LOT of sway bar bushings - there is an updated part number for your year with a better lube avail - to test spray a SILICONE base lube as far into the bar to frame bushins as possible