Creaking front suspension

[Pickle22]

Hello fellow Infiniti lovers. I have a beautiful 2013 FX50s and man do I love her. It has 75k miles on it and about a week ago I starting hearing a creaking noise from the front left of the car. It usually makes the noise on smooth bumps in the road (The ones that make the car do up and down gently). Not normally when I hit a pothole. If I'm sitting still and turn the wheel, I can sometimes get it to creak also. I jacked the car up and took off the front tires. I shook all the suspension components to the best of my ability and nothing seemed loose. It is getting cold up here in upstate NY so I'm unfortunately going to bring it to a shop for repair. I'm hoping it is just a sway bar bushing or ball joint. Anyone else have an idea or have experienced this issue?

Thank You,

 

[SCY7H3]

Hey Brian! awesome FX50s! Man I love the second gen FX too...I can't find anything comparable and reliable...especially today...

Chasing down a noise is always fun..I've done this enough times...and front ends are usually a little more time consuming because there's just so many points where it could be coming from...but it's all about isolating parts one at a time..and finding the area where it's coming from..

Creaking usually happens between two metal parts especially during slow movements... and as soon as you try to replicate it with a faster motion the sound doesn't present itself. There are times when jacking up the car will actually prevent the noise from happening because it either takes the tension off the part or it moves the part in a different position where it won't happen.

While it's hard to point out any particular area the best thing would be to replicate the sound in a controlled environment and that will point out what it could be. I've gone through enough examples of typical sounds and then sounds as a result of an edge case.

You can try putting the car in park on a level area, rest your foot on the top of the driver-side tire and push with your foot in a rocking motion to see if the creaking starts...if this replicates the sound then you can get another person to see where it's coming from...

I know you mentioned turning the wheel causes it to creak...that could be a number of things as well..are you holding the brake pedal when this happens or does it also happen when in neutral/park?

 

[LA_DRIVER]

My car creaked when I went slowly over speed bumps, especially when the wheels were turned. Replacing the lower control arms fixed it. They were 8 years old with only 70,000 miles on them, but the roads here in LA accelerate wear for sure. The sway bar end links will also make noise when going over speed bumps if they are worn out. I'd start there as it's a much cheaper and easier fix.