Shaking/Squeaking

[chadm_88]

My friends neon rides like crap! The front end shakes from side to side horribly, and also is very squeaky. The noise is related to wheel speed, so I'm sure the wheel bearings are shot, but would this cause the car to shake from side to side also?

[denisond3]

Im no expert on suspensions, but my guess is that the rubber suspension bushings on one side (or maybe both sides) might be chewed up. This can happen from a long standing oil leak that softens up the rubber inner part of the bushings, plus some cornering at high speeds. I would check for this by a close inspection, looking for chewed up or swollen rubber insulators. Though I havent done it, I need to check this on my daughters 97. There is a slight side-to-side shaking as you accelerate through 25-40 mph. And of course there is wheel based vibration at 73 mph.
Though I dont recommend anyone try it, the scheme I would use is to run the car up on ramps, placed so the bumper is up against a good sized tree. Thats so it wont move forward: While I would lie under the nose of the car on one side, and have someone put it in drive and give it a little gas, gently, with the brakes off. I would be looking for any uneven movement of the front suspension parts.
A good way to check for a bad wheel bearing, is to get one front wheel off the ground (with a jackstand or pile of 6 by 6 lumber, not just the little scissor jack) and having the engine running, the transmission in low gear. Turn the wheel so you can see the hub, and listen with a mechanics stethoscope touching the steering knuckle. Do it to one side of the vehicle, then the other . If there is bad wheel bearing, one side will be much noiser than the other.
A bent wheel or bent hub, or a wheel mounted to the hub unevenly will give you a slight feel of side-to-side movement. I even had this effect on a car where one of the front tires wasnt completely seated; the bead of the tire wasnt fully forced onto the rim of the wheel.
I think of wheel bearings as making growling noises, not squeaks. The squeaks I have heard on FWD cars were bad struts and/or bad thrust bearings at the top of the stuts.