creaking noise from front of car, citroen c5 hdi 2001

[Slinnian]

Hi all

i have a Citroen C5 HDI 2001 and there is a creaking noise coming from the front end of the car. it only happens when breaking or accelerating. its been getting gradually worse over the past few days and my mechanic cant see the car until Monday!! Any idea what the problem may be, and is it serious enough to warrent parking up for the next week!

thanks in advance

[Slinnian]

Found this on another site, so will check the usual!

Creaking in a 13 year old car can be caused by most anything. Struts are a common reason for this, and the most expensive, so that's what most repair shops will tackle first. Not to worry too much, if they were the original struts they needed replacing anyway.

Besides the struts the problem could be rusty ball joints (4 of them), rusty tie-rod ends (4 of them), rusty control arm bushings (4), worn rubber bushings in anti-sway bar (12), worn bushings in the horiz. stabilizer (10).

Or the creak could be coming from the engine mounts, the exhaust system joints, or the strut tower mounts.

The first thing I'd do is having the car put up on a lift and having every joint inspected for torn rubber booties or leaking grease. Any joint with a torn boot or leaked grease is almost certainly in need of replacement.

If that does not reveal any problem, you can try to narrow down the problem area by having somebody jump on the front bumper or fenders while you listen and feel around the wheel wells. That *sometimes* works, but noise has a funny way of travelling away from the source and showing up somewhere else. For instance a creaking sway-bar bushing often telegraphs its noise to the end of the sway bar or even into the strut springs. Oh, I forgot, you could have a shifted or cracked spring or sprig mount.

[411514]

As you have already found an indeterminate creaking noise really could be anything.
Unless you can narrow down the symptoms (i.e. is it more prevalent when cornering in a particular direction or is it speed independent thus possibly more likely to be engine mounts), then you might just have to learn to live with it as the list of parts you yourself describe is thousands of pounds of work.

Might be a good idea to start by changing front droplinks and lower balljoints (although failure of these will ususally make a knocking noise rather than creaking) as these are basic service parts which after 10 years will want changing soon enough anyway.
After that maybe try new wishbone bushes or new wishbones (relatively cheap), as play in a bush could cause the sort of creaking noise you describe, Sam

[Citroenmad]

As you've already found, it could be just about anything!

I've known drop link ball joints to become dry and make the most significant creaking noise, which is a very easy and cheap fix to replace those. The best thing to do would be to get under the car with it safely sat on some ramps, get someone to press up and down on the front of the car while you carefully feel around for the noise. You should feel a slightl vibration through the offending parts.

Hopefully its a cheap and simple fix, such as a dry ball joint or handbrake cable guides. Let us know how you get on.

[blackbeard]

I had an intermittant creaking noise that I could not trace. Eventually worked out it was inside the car not outside, and then eventually homed in on the nearside inner sunblind (the small pastic one). It was rubbing against the larger outer one (which has the mirror on it) during braking and over rough surfaces. Simple 2 second fix.

Old interior trim and dash plastics sometimes creak too, bit like me really......