When turning particularly left normally i hear a deap popping noise from the right hand side, does this upon accerlation especially if i have to climb a small rise or intersection bump. My manager at work who ran a tire/suspension shop for 15 years previously came for a quick drive wiith me today, it didnt act up, however, the car just aligned and the front end checked out perfect, he said from what im saying it sounds like strut bearings for sure, they pop and clunk when they go south.
In that case I need to get these fixed, it will be done at a shop ofcourse...they pop about 35% of the time when cornering or acellerating..the cars alignment is still perfect...is this something i need to worry about like RIGHT now or can they wait?

I doubt it'll cause any serious problems right away. steering might just get a little heavier for now. Mine were popping and when I did my struts the bearings and their retainer were still just fine, just the lack of grease was causing them to bind a little. Unless you feel like removing your struts and getting ANOTHER alignment, I wouldn't worry about it. That is of course if you're POSITIVE its the strut mount bearings. Could be tie rod end popping? Ball joint? If you can isolate the noise it would really narrow it down.

Edit: with your mileage tho, I wold suspect strut mount bearings above anything else anyways. the bearings dry out really easily, as would your tie rods ends and ball joints if they didn't have grease fittings.

Are strut bearings supposed to be greased? For some reason, I thought they were just plastic-on-plastic.

there are metal ball bearings in a plastic casing, abs i believe. thats why they bind. and yeah, i do believe they have silicone grease on them originally, but i imagine putting regular grease on them wouldnt hurt. not positive on that, but i greased mine and my steering got lighter and no more popping and knocking sound.

Ah, okay. I knew there was at least some plastic involved.

Well, if you were to try greasing them yourself vs. replacing them, you'd want to do some research about what kind of plastic that is, and what kind of grease (if any) won't degrade it. Some plastics are okay with grease/oil/fuel... some are not at all. My guess is that it'* a nylon, which goes better with grease.

But I think they are reasonably cheap anyway to replace, right? If I were to go to all of the trouble to get to them, I think I'd just buy new and know that they're good for another 100k or so.

Yeah, actually nylon would sound quite a bit closer to the description indeed. And yeah, they're not that expensive actually.

I did them on my red car when i had struts done too, 40 dollars a bearing..not bad..this time I would buy them through work though.
Tie rod ends are all good and greased, the alignment shop said my front end was all really tight and what not, might take it in next week though, crap like that bugs me

Matt...

If SSEB4eva saw this..he'd suggest lubing them up and giving that a try. It'* a dry bearing. Give it some lube man...

And this reminds me to toss a little lube at my strut bearings also.

Had the same problem in my GXP, then one day it left me stranded (AAA to the rescue though) the strut mount broke and the strut came out of its carriage but after 4 days FINALLY it was fixed. Damn Pontiac dealership.