Stop Car Squeaks and Noises

An inexpensive grease gun is all you need to lube chassis grease fittings. The grease comes in easy-to-replace cartridges so you don’t have to pack the gun by hand.

Your car squeaks.

It’s gotten to the point where the neighbors know you’re on the way home from half a block away because of all the “chirps” and “eeps” coming from your suspension. It’s embarrassing, man. It’s also potentially expensive if you have to replace all those worn parts. So why do these components begin to squeak? Suspension and steering joints wear out—and ultimately fail—when unlubricated metal-to-metal contact erodes bushings and bearing surfaces, much like 40-grit sandpaper on a wooden table. So let’s nip this degradation in the bud.

Lube It, Already

You’re lucky. Chassis lubrication isn’t expensive. You can buy a grease gun, some chassis grease and a couple of aerosol cans of lubricant for less than the price of one worn-out tie rod end. So there’s no excuse. Your vehicle doesn’t need to sound like an angry gerbil on a treadmill.

Most cars and light trucks today are manufactured with sealed “lubed for life” ball joints, tie rod ends and even U-joints. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy—when the factory-fill grease dries out, the joint wears out. Some vehicles still come with suspension and driveline parts that have proper grease fittings, allowing you to use a simple hand-pumped grease gun to inject precious lubrication at regular intervals. Virtually all aftermarket parts, even the direct replacements for the sealed factory units, have grease fittings to allow for lubrication. So what’s the difference between the lubed-for-life parts and the greaseable after­market parts? Only the grease fitting. In fact, you could even drill and tap a hole into a sealed part and add a grease fitting yourself, which is something I usually do on my own cars. Why do car manufacturers leave off this inexpensive fitting? They count every cent that goes into a new vehicle. And a few cents saved on 400,000 vehicles is eventually real money. More important, lubed-for-life parts allow automakers to tout their vehicles as requiring less scheduled maintenance. That has become more important in these days of five- or 10-year warranties—even if the truth of the matter is that the unlubricateable parts will require eventual replacement, at your expense.

Get Underneath

The first thing you need to do before lubricating your chassis is to get some space underneath the vehicle so that you can work safely. My pickup has enough clearance that I can simply crawl underneath it, grease gun in hand, and get the job done. My Porsche needs to be on ramps or safety stands. Either way, make sure the parking brake is on and you place blocks behind the wheels. Toss something thicker than your head, a block of wood or even a spare tire, under there too for insurance.

Now that you’re underneath the car, the procedure is simple—open up the dust boot on the fitting and clean off any grime with a rag so you don’t force dirt inside. Pop the grease gun onto the fitting and pump the trigger until the rubber boot bleeds fresh grease around the edges. Your vehicle may have as many as a dozen fittings on the front suspension. If you own a 4x4 that sees a lot of mud, plan to spend time under the chassis with a grease gun regularly. You may find fittings on tie rod ends, upper and lower ball joints, sway-bar links and control-arm pivots, so hunt around and make sure to hit them all. There might be grease fittings on as many as three U-joints on the driveshaft (or shafts), depending on whether you have a front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Can’t get any grease into the fitting? It’s probably clogged with dried grease or dirt. Squeeze harder on the trigger of the grease gun. Still dry? Unscrew the fitting with a wrench and clean it out with a wire and solvent, or just install a new one from the auto parts store.

It Still Squeaks

There are plenty of other things that can squeak on your car’s suspension. Coil or leaf springs are supposed to have thin plastic insulators to keep metal-to-metal friction from creating noise, but age and the ravages of the road wear these little protectors out or simply cause them to fall off. A temporary solution is to soak that noisy area with spray-on lithium grease. A helper can bounce the car up and down while you crawl around underneath and track down that squeak. If the sound is from a rubber suspension bushing, silicone spray is better. It won’t last as long, but the silicone won’t degrade the rubber bushing.

It’s Hitchcock’s Car

Got a door, hood or trunk hinge that sounds like it’s auditioning for the soundtrack of a horror movie? Hose it down with aerosol penetrating lube to rinse the corrosion out of the hinge, and follow with aerosol lithium grease.

Does your hood-release mechanism groan when you pull the interior latch? Does it take two people to open the hood—one to pull the release from inside the car while a second smacks the hood with the palm of his hand until it pops open? Time to lube the latch mechanism. Hood latches, whether they’re remote or not, live in a dirty, wet and salty environment. Cycle the latch mechanism by hand a few times to break up any crunchy deposits. Then soak the mechanism with spray penetrant, or even carb cleaner, to hose away any dirt or dried-out, contaminated grease. Then spray it with aerosol lithium grease.

Door-latch mechanisms can get sticky, too. I have a rule about what kind of lubricants to use: If the latch or hinge is outside the door gasket, it gets sprayed with lithium grease. But if it’s inside, I prefer to use a dry-film spray, for two reasons. It won’t attract or hold dirt or dust, and it won’t stain your clothes if you happen to brush against it.

A lot of late-model door-latch mechanisms use plastic bushings instead of metal-to-metal ones, and technically, these don’t need to be lubricated. But they do collect dirt and dust. Flush them with aerosol dry-film lube, and then use a rag to remove any excess slick stuff from the doorframe.

Key tumblers should only be lubed with graphite, never with penetrating oil or anything that will hold dirt inside the mechanism.

Wipe down door seals with silicone to prevent winter freeze-outs and to preserve the rubber.

Squeaky springs can be tamed with an occasional shot of aerosol grease.

Flush dirt and rust out of the hood-latch mechanism with penetrating oil, then apply aerosol grease.

Hood, door and tailgate hinges should be doused with aerosol grease regularly. Clean up any overspray with a rag.