Front end creak

[hyuan]

Recently, after I brought the car in for routine maintenance service (work done for a 30K maintenance), the car began to develop an annoying creak. I am uncertain if the maintenance work caused the creak. It could be coincidental that the noise occurred soon after the performance of maintenance work.

The creak does not seem to be emanating from the interior trim. Rather, the creak sounds like it is coming from the front of the car. I often reproduced the creak going over bumps or turning the steering wheel (in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions) at speeds less than 45MPH. I can reproduce the creak at will by disturbing the steering wheel back and forth quickly.

I have spent several hours trying to diagnose where this creak is. I also took the car back to Don of Hilltop Auto fame where I had my service done and asked him to locate the creak. Don spent a good amount of time tracking it down but gave up after an hour (I paid him for his trouble regardless). Don tightened up several bolts underneath the car during this process. We both have checked the usual suspects (spare tire, battery, etc.) and have come up empty.

At this point, I am at a loss for what to do. Without good leads regarding where to look, I am afraid I might continue to throw money at this problem with no results.

Does anyone on the forum have any ideas what might be causing this?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Briank]

Check the sway bar bushings

 

[prova4re]

Briank is right.

I had the same problem, it took me 2 months to find it.
When I turned the wheel from side to side it didn't make the noise at first, as time went by it would do it every time you made a turn or hit a bump.
The problem was the sway bar was lose on one side, it only needed a to be tightened a little bit for the sound to go away.

 

[hyuan]

Now for a dumb question

Thanks for the response guys!

I have a really dumb question now. How can I get to the sway bar? I looked around in the manual and I am not sure where it is, how to get to it, or what it looks like.

Will I need special tools to tighten it?

 

[the nsxnut]

In the manual, this is referred to as the 'stabilizer bar'. It can be worked on with a standard set of metric wrenches.

Other common names:
Sway bar, anti-sway bar, roll bar, anti-roll bar, etc...

 

[RichH]

Is this a common issue (loose sway bars)? What was the milage on the cars with the problwm?

Thanks Rich

 

[prova4re]

Re: Now for a dumb question

Thanks for the response guys!

I have a really dumb question now. How can I get to the sway bar? I looked around in the manual and I am not sure where it is, how to get to it, or what it looks like.

Will I need special tools to tighten it?

You can take out your spare tire and you can see it at the bottom of the rad, if its a stock sway bar its black.
Grab a hold of it and shake it around to see if it starts creaking, if you need to get to it , just jack up the car and pull the tire off.
Check the toe links to see if they are tight to the sway bar, it may look tight but under load it might start creaking.
Also check were the sway bar mounts to the frame to see if those bolts are tight. Look at the bushing's to see what kind of shape they are in, my Comptech bars came with lube for the bushings.
The instructions said you might need to lube it if it starts to make noise.

 

[hyuan]

Thanks everyone for responding!

I ended up taking the car back to Don. After a fairly extensive effort, Don figured out what was wrong. It turns out my particular issue was not caused by the swaybar, but rather, the spare tire bracket assembly was somehow being agitated against something. Don has since placed some insulation around the place that was rubbing and everything is quiet up front now.

Thanks Don for the hardwork on this!

 

[nsxexotic]

I keep this in mind when I get any creak. thanks.

 

[Steve D]

HY,
My '94 with 30k miles is making the same creaking noise. Can you tell me exactly what was wrong and how it was fixed, or should I just take it to Don.
Thanks,
Dion

 

[hyuan]

Hi Steve,

I am not sure exactly what he did. It might be best to call him or just bring the car to him.

I felt that I couldn't really get a good at the bottom of the car without lifting it up. In the end, there was no way I would have discovered the noise using my own conventional methods anyway; I am glad Don was able to resolve it. Given the fact he probably works on hundreds of NSX's a year, he has a good foundation for troubleshooting obscure issues like this.