Best friend of mine has a 05 Civic four door with coil overs. When the car has been driven in the rain for extended periods of time we hear a creaking sound coming from the underside of the car. The creaking sound only comes when he is turning and when the car has been driven in the rain for a long time.

Any ideas?
Thanks

 

check all the suspension components. something might just need to be re-lubed/re-greased, i would think. OR, worst case scenario, the suspension was installed wrong.

 

I'm the friend.

Its really more of a rubbing/grinding sound. Its definitely the front passenger side. Jacked the car up and took the wheel off to check out that area yesterday and everything looked pretty normal. The compliance bushing looked slightly dried out and had a couple small cracks.

The only strange looking thing was the transmission housing and almost every surface near the inner CV joint was coated with black greasy stuff. I looked at the driver side and it wasn't nearly as dirty. So, I'm guessing maybe a small tear in the inner CV boot.

Also, this grinding noise usually seems to happen when turning hard left. And it used to only happen when the road was pretty wet, but lately that doesn't seem to matter.

Any other suggestions would be great!

 

Actually, if its more predominant when turning... I'd lean towards a wheel bearing being the problem.

 

Could it be a broken spring? My son had one on his Civic that only made noise when turning or going over a pothole.

 

what are your tires specs? you might also need an alignment. lastly, that dirty greasy looking stuff could either be from a blown/leaking strut or from a brake hose leak. check your brake fluid level to see if it's low. cheers.

 

Thanks for the replies/suggestions. How often should wheel bearings need to be replaced? Car has about 108,xxx miles and no major work (nothing but oil changes, occasional fluid changes, and occasional inspections) previously needed.

Tire specs are 205/50/15 Falken Azenis RT-615K on 15x6.5 +42 wheels. No visible rub marks on the tire or fender area. The strut looked fine when I had the wheel off the other day. Brake fluid level is half way between min and max line, so its possible there is a tiny leak somewhere. Its been 6 months since brake fluid was flushed and Motul RBF600 was put in.

If anyone was wondering, the coilovers are Progress ones for the 02-05 Si and were put on a few years ago along with Ingalls camber bolts.

 

That's really on a need-to-replace basis. I've replaced some at 60k miles, and some at 180k miles.

 

Possibly strut top bearings. Btw that greasy stuff could be a bad tranny dipstick if its auto. The wiggle in the hole after the rubber shrinks and gets crank everywhere from tranny fluid puking out