Strut Mounts?

[Ilya]

So, lately my suspension has developed a rattle in the front and maybe a little in the back. Everything looks good under the car, so it is my strut mounts? It sounds/feels like it is in the upper part of the suspension (you know how you can sometimes feel where it's coming from?).

For those with coilovers, are strut mounts part of the coilovers? Or are they external parts that be swapped regardless of what suspension you have?

I have BC Racing coilovers.

[mitrals]

I have had some rattles when the car went over potholes or imperfections in the road. My mechanic says it can be the sway bar bushing so I bought those and going to have them installed. I also plan to do all the stabilizer links and am hoping that the noise goes away. My thread here : suspension-issues-t585226.html

[svard75]

Strut mounts come with coil overs. Depending on the brand you may be able to buy replacements. I would start simple and work my way towards difficult. Start buy jacking the wheels off the ground, min both sides at the same time and check spring preload. Have you readjusted since installation? Springs settle after a year or so. Also check the lower perches for play.
Also check your front and rear away bar end links, upper suspension arm joint and steering knuckle for play.

If none of these present the reason for rattling use your lift to bring the car up just a bit. Remove the wheels and sway bar. Then one strut at a time. Move the suspension up, down them left/right to hopefully detect the loose part.

Cheers

[Ilya]

Thanks msvara. I had the car checked out by a mechanic a month or two ago and he said everything was good. Might have to do it myself or have him take a look again to see if something worsened (he blamed it on coilovers - he has had them on his cars too - just being noisy).

I haven't re-adjusted. I struggled mightily adjusting the height when I installed them and had to have a shop finish it. I really want to avoid that (I don't think it could cause this kind of noise anyway) because they charged me like $160 for an alignment after adjustment and for the time it took them to level everything out.

When I installed my suspension last march or so, I did replace the links, etc.

Thanks for answering my question though...I wasn't sure the mounts were OEM or BC specific.

I'm thinking of scrapping coilovers and just getting good old struts with springs...

[svard75]

I'm with you on that as well. I do prefer the lower ride but the springs from Burt industries are never stocked and he needs at least 10 orders to get one shipment.

[06M4.5]

I have read that when taking out the oem strut some have removed a paper or gasket from the top mount and that has made noise in some cases. I removed them on my M & others that I have done and haven't had a problem, but you never know.

If you do a search you'll find many BC Racing coilover owners complain about all types of noise from both front & rear. You should have a 1yr warranty if the problems is the coilovers.

Now that Megan Racing coilovers are rebuildable most are going with them. The funny part is that they are so close to the BC Racing coilovers as in set up. I have sold a few of the Megan with no problems at all.

Good luck finding the problem which I know may not be easy, even more so with this extra cold weather.