Squeaking From FD Rear End
 

Hi guys,
Trying to sort through all the cars problems after getting it running after years of storage. The squeaking isn't new, it had started sometime not long before putting the car in storage.
The squeaking is very loud, both in and out of the car and sounds like its coming from more than one place, maybe everything just started squeaking at the same time. Its definitely coming from the rear. Its hard to determine even the general area of the source, it sounds like it could both be inside the interior but I'm leaning towards it being outside and likely suspension. It happens anytime the car shifts at all or hits a bump, basically anything but the smoothest straight road means this thing is squeaking like crazy. It's loud enough that the music would have to be cranked and the engine probably wouldn't be audible anymore. Its frustrating and embarrassing and is now at the top of my list of problems with the car.

After a bunch of searching on site I've come up with the below list of potential causes:

• Rear hatch latch
• Rear hatch rubber stops
• Rear shock to body connection
• Rear suspension bushings
• Rear pillow ball bushings

I don't have a lot of free time to tackle big projects prior to winter, so taking the suspension apart and replacing all the bushings and pillow balls is probably off the table. The rear hatch and rear shock mounts should be easy to address.
The rear hatch rubbers seem simple but what are people doing to the rear hatch latch? seems like some people were tightening it down, other just cleaning and lubricating it.
The shocks would be easy to unbolt and install a new gasket material.

If it is the bushings or pillow balls what is the best way to confirm? I had the car jacked up off the suspension and tried to shake the tires around but didn't really feel any looseness and wasn't able to make anything squeak. Is there a quick temperary fix in the meantime like injecting some grease or something to get me by until the winter until I have time to replace the bushings?

Is there anything else that's a common cause that I am missing? as always thanks for any help.

Liquid wrench on the bushings helped with a persistant squeak on my car. Then I had to have a dent guy remove the 10 dimples I put in my fenders from testing the shocks the old fashioned way.

When my rubber bumpers age out, I stick a sock on top of them until the new ones arrive.

When the persistant squeak returned last year, it went away when I switched out the dif and put in less old short drive shafts. They also found one of my dif hanger bolts had gone missing.

if helps the pillow balls usually make clunks, they develop play, so you're hearing the arms flop around.

to find noises the best way i've found, is to get it where you can make the noise when the car is in your workspace, after that its usually pretty easy.
ive been on lots and lots of test drives with customers, and a, the car will always go on really long drives and not make the noise until you give up and you're a block from the shop
and b, i had a lot of luck kicking the tires, as dumb as that sounds.

but basically, once you get it to make the noise on the road, then you can get it to make the noise when its stopped, and after that its pretty straightforward

the bonus funny one, was this lady brought he car, i think it was a Mazda 6, for a clunk. and we had looked at some stuff, and the service writer was like "have you seen your husband?"
and she thought about it, and was like "no, not for a few days"

chassis ears are a pretty handy tool to have as well. a cheap set is around $60. we used steelman in our shop but some of the remote transmitters got wishy washy about wanting to work after some time because other techs would be too lazy to remove batteries between uses. generally it is just the hatch on these hatchback cars that squeak though.

the worst ones are the cars that you HAVE to drive to get to make noise, those pretty much require remote assistance like these tools.

no one in our shops liked squeaks and rattles and being one of the senior techs of course i had to deal with that crap all the time.

lubricating everything you see/suspect can cause more issues than you eventually resolve.

Hatch hinges. Hatch dampers. Muffler rubbing on the chassis.

I folded up paper towel and put it on top of the hatch rubbers and then pinched a paper towel in the hatch latch. Still had lots of squeaking on the drive in, the more I drive around it sounds lower in rear the suspension. I'll probably still do the shock towers because that's decently easy.

Chassis ears seem like a decent tool.

Very experienced shop could not guess my creaking source. They suggested it could be a crack in, or separation of, the unibody panels. Fortunately that was not the case.

in my experience experienced shops aren't great at everything. they're good at limited amounts of things. i don't suspect a lot of rotary owners go to a specialty shop with squeak and rattle issues prepared to pay 3-4 hours of diag time at $150+ an hour.

issues like these owners may be better suited to spend their own time tracking down at the rates shops charge.

squeaks and rattles were the bane of my existence as well as most any other techs, because best case i got paid 9 tenths of an hour to diagnose every one of them. that's why most shops throw parts at cars, but in my experience they were almost always covered by warranty so the owners never had to pay out of pocket if the aim was off.

most folks think it is easy enough but they're not the ones taking 20+ minute test drives, racking the car and moving the sensors, retest, rinse and repeat 3-4 times to narrow down the noise. the only time it is easy to track down is if the noise can be duplicated by jouncing the car without needing to drive it.

Found my issue. The issue was the rear toe links that I had replaced with aftermarket TCS toe link arms at some point in the past. The heim joints were squeaking during any articulation. I applied some grease to the joints and low and behold all the squeaking is gone.
Now grease is not an actual solution as it will likely not last and it will also attract dirt and debris which would increase the rate of wear.
Is there any reason I shouldn't get a generic heim joint boot like . Then I could put some grease in the boot and it would be sealed, seems like this would extend the life of the heim joints as well as permanently solving the squeaking.