Noise from left front area, 2000 Boxster

[jim_h]

Got a frustrating thing going on with my left front suspension, maybe someone has had similar symptoms or can give me a clue. Starting about a week ago after my 25 minute freeway commute home I heard a very noticeable squeek coming from the front. When I got home I bounced the car and got the same squeek. A couple of days later after a drive with car squeeking I jacked up the front to get some big wood blocks under the tire so I could get underneath and see what component is making the noise and it did not squeek when my son bounced it. Jacked up the rear then thinking maybe that would make a difference but no squeek. I have repeated this twice with the same result. So the symptoms are, start out from cold - no squeek, drive for a while and it squeeks, park it, bounce it and it squeeks, then jack it up onto blocks, bounce it and no squeek. If I park it after a drive and let sit for 15 minutes it is still squeeking, but eventually it stops. The squeek is very noticeable at low speeds going over normal road bumps.

The car has 106K miles.

Struts? Bushings? Control arm?

[geoff]

Besides the suspension items you listed, it could also be the front trunk lid. If the front trunk doesn't close very snug after all the miles on your car, you could get a squeak that's noticeable at low speed

[jim_h]

So this turned out to be a worn ball joint, and I ended up replacing the control arm with one from TRW. I took the car to a recommended alignment shop and when he pushed down on the fender and heard the squeak he said that is was probably the ball joint especially when he noticed that just a very small amount of movement would make the noise. When I told him about jacking the car up until the wheel was off the ground and then the noise going away, that was an "ah ha" moment and he said that pretty much confirms that the ball joint is bad. Evidently when the load is removed the joint shifts around slightly and that affects the interference or whatever is rubbing in there.

I changed the control arm myself, following the Bently manual it was easy and took about 1 /2 hours. I used a pickle fork to separate the ball joint.

Hope this description is helpful to some other owner.

Cheers,

Jim