Hi Everyone,

First post here. The car is not mine, it'* my Father-in-Laws and I'm trying to help fix a problem. He'* got a 97 SSE that'* making a very loud squeak in the left rear. The car has around 140000 miles. 1st thought was bushings, but it seems too loud and excessive for that. 2nd thought was the rear strut, but again doesn't seem like the right kind of squeak for that. I'm thinking along the lines of a mount, maybe the spring mount, or strut mount? Anyone have something similair happen or ideas on where to start?

I'm on vacation and kind of limited on what I can do but would like to try and track this down. Thanks in advance!

Steve

Best way to figure this out is get the car on a ramp and have someone bounce up and down on the rear bumper as you are underneath and can listen for the squeak. The other thing you can do is squirt some WD40 in each place, one at a time; where you think the squeak is. Go drive it and if the squeak is gone, you found the problem area. If the squeak is still there, spray the next area and go for a drive.

Thanks for the reply. I'm in the process of doing just that. Got most of the easy to reach bushings. Tomorrow I'm going to pull the rear wheel and get a better look at it, I ran out of time today. How hard are the rear struts to change? Anything peculiar on this setup?

Also with what Purple said...there is two very common areas back there that squeak. Look at the rear sway bar center bushings. Are they worn or possibly gone? And the rear struts mounts.

Also a dry ball joint or tie rod end will squeak if they haven't been lubed in a very long time. So grease them up while your back there to. just look for the grease zerks.

if I remember correctly the rears are struts with no coil overs. so easy to change don't need to get teh compressors of death.

I know very few ever post the follow-ups, so .....

It was the ball joints. 1 on each side in the back had not been greased in awhile. I'm really surprised how much noise they made and wonder how much longer they will last, but a little grease quieted them down.

Another interesting thing: The front end had a missing sway bar link (tie rod) on one side. I asked him if he ever noticed much of a sway. That was a cheap easy fix though.

Thanks for your help,

Steve