2001 V70 T5 Should your suspension struts turn?

siboyslim · Post by **siboyslim** » 23 Mar 2015, 02:51

Odd one.....

Trying to investigate why the V70 is groaning when turning the wheel at low speeds (parking speeds) sounds like a boat creaking.

While getting the other half to turn the wheel I notice both suspension struts twist when the car is stationary, this is also visible while looking at the top mounts? Or thinking about it now it might just of been the springs turning when I was sticking my head in the wheel arch

I am 99.9% sure this is not supposed to happen, can someone with more knowledge enlighten me, thanks!

Si

siboyslim · Post by **siboyslim** » 23 Mar 2015, 05:00

Ok while thinking about it logically I have come to the conclusion the should of course move with your steering

Has anyone else ever had a creaking top mount bearing then?

phly50 · Post by **phly50** » 23 Mar 2015, 05:59

Yep, I have the same issue with my '98 S70. Started just after replacing the spring seats with HD ones from IPD. Will be pulling that side of the suspension apart next week (noise only comes from the left hand side) to investigate. Seems to have gotten worse as time went on too, over 14 months. Very annoying I agree. Will report back my findings in due course. Cheers, Phil.

siboyslim · Post by **siboyslim** » 23 Mar 2015, 08:06

phly50 wrote:Yep, I have the same issue with my '98 S70. Started just after replacing the spring seats with HD ones from IPD. Will be pulling that side of the suspension apart next week (noise only comes from the left hand side) to investigate. Seems to have gotten worse as time went on too, over 14 months. Very annoying I agree. Will report back my findings in due course. Cheers, Phil.

Cheers Phil that would be very interesting.

Post by **SuperHerman** » 23 Mar 2015, 21:35

Suspension should turn on the strut bearings - no other play should be evident. Possible things I can think of are your strut bushings or spring seats, the big black rubber pads, are not seated correctly or broken. These fail and separate. Another possibility is the strut mount nut, the star one, is not tight. You can tighten this without removing anything save for the cap on top. Get a channel lock, or the correct special tool, and with the wheels on the ground check if it is tight. Other possible cause of noise is the bushing/grommet that is by the footwell. Check these items and report back.

siboyslim · Post by **siboyslim** » 24 Mar 2015, 16:38

SuperHerman wrote:Suspension should turn on the strut bearings - no other play should be evident. Possible things I can think of are your strut bushings or spring seats, the big black rubber pads, are not seated correctly or broken. These fail and separate. Another possibility is the strut mount nut, the star one, is not tight. You can tighten this without removing anything save for the cap on top. Get a channel lock, or the correct special tool, and with the wheels on the ground check if it is tight. Other possible cause of noise is the bushing/grommet that is by the footwell. Check these items and report back.

Hi thanks for the info.

The more I listen to it the more I think it's the top strut bearing, thing is these are only a month old, I had a friend of a friend fit a new spring seat and top mount.

I will check the star nut....

You mean removing this nut...

And then tightening this one...

These are not my images, just did a quick google search

Just put my mind at rest and confirm I won't get some suspension part release under pressure and kill me

Post by **SuperHerman** » 24 Mar 2015, 22:36

Nice pictures. Forgot that nut, but yes that is it. Remove the nut and the circle plate. The four sided star nut holds everything in place (unless it is stripped which I doubt - but you would know when you loosen the first nut as everything will slide up with each turn) and no geometry should change taking them off. The circle plate and top nut is safety and redundancy in my mind. That gold colored star nut is holding everything down.

Think about it this way, the gold star nut pushes on the actual suspension and takes the load and sets the correct length of the suspension - the circle plate (like a giant washer pushes on the gold star nut and doesn't allow it to rotate) and lock washer and nut push down on the gold star nut. The last three (circle plate, washer and nut) cannot change suspension geometry because strut length is fixed already by the gold star nut. You are putting a giant washer, lock washer and nut to keep the gold star nut from turning. FWIW I have done this several times and never had an issue as I chased noises.

If it is loose it will go up and down as the suspension cycles causing noises and slop.

Post by **GBS** » 24 Mar 2015, 23:20

I had the same creaking on our V70, that was definitely the bearing and it was only bad on the driver side, passenger was not making any noise. At the time the car had 120k and original struts so I changed out everything but springs. Creaking disappeared and I didn't realize how bad the struts were gone until I had new ones on there, big difference. I put IPD HD and all that kit on there and been happy with it ever since, car just ticked over 190k and have had no issues with the parts. Doing the front shocks on the V70 was one of the more fun jobs I did on the car, easily accessible and you get to play with spring compressor....

siboyslim · Post by **siboyslim** » 25 Mar 2015, 05:00

SuperHerman wrote:Nice pictures. Forgot that nut, but yes that is it. Remove the nut and the circle plate. The four sided star nut holds everything in place (unless it is stripped which I doubt - but you would know when you loosen the first nut as everything will slide up with each turn) and no geometry should change taking them off. The circle plate and top nut is safety and redundancy in my mind. That gold colored star nut is holding everything down.

Think about it this way, the gold star nut pushes on the actual suspension and takes the load and sets the correct length of the suspension - the circle plate (like a giant washer pushes on the gold star nut and doesn't allow it to rotate) and lock washer and nut push down on the gold star nut. The last three (circle plate, washer and nut) cannot change suspension geometry because strut length is fixed already by the gold star nut. You are putting a giant washer, lock washer and nut to keep the gold star nut from turning. FWIW I have done this several times and never had an issue as I chased noises.

If it is loose it will go up and down as the suspension cycles causing noises and slop.

Thanks a million that was just the explanation I needed.

I will proceed with this tonight fingers crossed.

Will let you know.

siboyslim · Post by **siboyslim** » 25 Mar 2015, 05:01

GBS wrote:I had the same creaking on our V70, that was definitely the bearing and it was only bad on the driver side, passenger was not making any noise. At the time the car had 120k and original struts so I changed out everything but springs. Creaking disappeared and I didn't realize how bad the struts were gone until I had new ones on there, big difference. I put IPD HD and all that kit on there and been happy with it ever since, car just ticked over 190k and have had no issues with the parts. Doing the front shocks on the V70 was one of the more fun jobs I did on the car, easily accessible and you get to play with spring compressor....

I'm thinking the same thing, hopefully I can tighten this up for the mean time and then replace everything in one hit and have a go myself. My car is on 127k so well over due.