front suspension creak help

My front suspension on my c4s has had an annoying loud creak for months. This happens at lower speeds over undulations in the road. When stopped it is only apparent while turning the steering wheel to almost full lock. When rocking the car from the frunk, I can only hear the creak at almost full compression. Otherwise the handles perfectly normal. The car is on H&R lowering springs and B8s with gt3 lcas. The front top mounts are good on both sides. I am thinking it is the ball joint on one of the front lcas. Both the boots on the ball joints are intact and the ball joint has no play. During my shock installation I had this diagnosed as the front sway bar (not the endlinks - as in the physical sway bar creaking) which I'm having a hard time understanding how a one piece sway bar can creak. Does this make sense? The endlinks would have come off during the install... I'm taking off the wheels this weekend to inspect again. Is there a better test I can perform with a prybar or something to determine whether it is the ball joint which seems to be the most common failing point from what I've researched? I have contemplated doing the pinhole into the boot and injecting it with silicone spray into it, but if it's not the balljoint I'd rather avoid it. I am trying to figure out whether I need to budget a front sway + endlinks or front lcas into the repair budget...

Coffin arm(s). The ball joint drys out (it's possible the boot is cracked/ripped - lost grease). This is very common - go on youtube there are several videos. Your hunch is correct - 99% sure of it. Just shoot some WD on your sway bar bushings and see if the creak goes away... I doubt it. Good luck

That is what I suspect. I have already blasted the endlinks with lube - no difference after I let it settle for a few days. My car has gt3 coffin arms from the prior owner... Although it is nice to adjust front camber I don't really have a need for them as I rarely track so will likely need to get both coffin arms replaced with stock c4s ones... I will try the pinhole trick this weekend and hopefully it goes away for a while...

Upper shock mounts r known to age out

^^^ this is true, but usually leads to clunking as opposed to creaking.

The control/coffin arms can cause clunking or creaking. On my 996, the first time it sounded like old bed springs. VERY creaky! The second time, a couple of years later, I had a bad clunk. Drivers side both times.

The strut top mounts were replaced less than 10k km ago. I'm going to try the pinhole lube trick this weekend on the driver side ball joint and see if that fixes anything!

I've had the same issue and did the pinhole trick. Worked for awhile, but I would recommend using a lubricant rather than WD 40.

I've tried the WD-40 trick myself on a creaky control arm and it lasted 1 week. I also tried white lithium grease on a clunky control arm and it did nothing. Both times I replaced the control arm immediately. It is not a bad job if you have the tools to do it. I can now R&R a control arm in about 45 minutes total. (Raising vehicle, R&R, lowering vehicle, torquing everything)

The pinhole trick is just a stop-gap measure as I just had the car aligned and it's otherwise driving fine. I'll try some silicone lube as it seems to seep a little better and last longer instead of WD40.

Did you install new or used LCA's?

They were installed by the prior owner so I have no idea. I actually think the original owner prior to him (pre-2014) had installed them.

If you end up getting new coffin arms, I'd be interested in buying the old creaky adjustable ones.

For anyone with this problem this ended up being my front sway bar bushings. I ended up having to remove both endlinks and when twisting the front sway, you could hear the loud creak from the bushings. The endlinks were fine and so was the balljoint. The good news is that the bushings are cheap... the bad news is I ended up trying the pinhole in balljoint trick first as I was convinced it was the problem (and much easier to do) so now have a hole in the boot... I put some automotive sealant around it so hopefully it holds up for a few months... but I probably screwed myself into a new coffin arm at some point this year.

Our 01 C4 cabriolet has a creaking noise in the steering column, with only 40k miles. I noticed that I can create the noise by pulling up and down on the steering wheel, with car off, sitting still. It sounds like it might be a couple pieces of the dash trim rubbing? It's pretty dang annoying, as it occurs on small bumps, turns etc - basically whenever the direction of forces on the steering change. Has anyone else out there experienced and diagnosed this problem? Thanks for any help you can provide!

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The ball joint rubber covers can be replaced. I pulled one off of one of my old creaky coffin arms to see if I could see why it was still creaking even though I'd tried to quiet it down by filling the boot full with lithium grease. It is held on with a split ring which was easy to get off. It was harder, but not impossible, to reinstall the split ring. You could buy a cheap coffin arm just for the boot. Re-grease the ball joint while the boot is off. That way you can keep the adjustable coffin arms in good shape.

Coming back to this. My 996 has 45k on it and is all original. Anyone else lived with this since before I pay for new coffin arms etc?