A bit of info for anyone suffering from creaking front suspension on a 2nd Gen Mazda 6.
As I drove at slow speed, or pressed on the front wing or rapidly turned the steering wheel whilst stationary, I could hear this horrible creaking from the front passenger side suspension in the region of the wheel. Only appeared since the cold weather and after I?d bounced the wing up and down a few times it would disappear making it very difficult to locate
The noise was very similar to a creaking pram for those of you old enough to remember what that sounded like. It sounded like a tiny amount of metal to metal movement causing a creaking noise. It definitely wasn?t the normal knocking that you?d get from a worn ball joint and the car had been through a service and MOT just 2 weeks earlier although it was on 100 000 miles.
I spent ages trying to pinpoint it as I could hear it even with the windows closed. After removing the front brakes and disc and jacking up and down, I was fairly convinced it was the ball joint on the lower suspension arm.
A whopping ?450 from Mazda or ?195 for a pattern part from Euro carparts. I went for the Euro carparts one. Replaced it in about 3 hours. Some fairly large bolts and very high torque figures but all went ok. I couldn?t find any fault with the one I took off though. Very pleased with it afterwards. Totally silent........ For about a week
A similar noise appeared on the front drivers side. I was convinced it was totally separate to the passenger side and again appeared to come from the drivers lower arm ball joint area.
Again no sign of wear and apart from my reluctance to spend another ?195, this side is more difficult to replace as you need to undo and tilt the subframe to get one of the bolts out. It hits the sump preventing removal due to its length.
As I decided it was metal on metal movement / vibration, I decided to remove the bolts, lubricate, move the arm around and torque it back up. Spent about an hour on it. Hey Presto it worked. Been 5 weeks and over 2000 miles now with no noise whatsoever.
The bolts I removed were 2 bolts (A), bolt for link (5), 2 nuts (4). The lower arm ball joint is attached to the arm itself so when the 2 nuts (4) are removed, the whole arm can be pivited down. No ball joint separation needed. Just a word of warning, the nuts screw onto studs in the hub. If the studs screw out when removing the nuts, the studs MUST be replace as there is now a danger of them working loose. Remove the bolts/nuts, spray with oil, knock it around a bit with a mallet, retorque it all up again.
Hope this helps someone and saves them a few quid.