Vibration and creak from front end

I have a 2001 C4 at on what I believe to be US suspension (I couldn't find any suspension codes on the sticker under the hood). The car is at 53k miles. There's a vibration through the steering wheel at around 75-85 mph. It is not correlated to engine speed. Wheels are balanced and tires are newish. I am also getting the infamous creaking noise from up front at low speeds, such as turning out of parking garage - I feel like I'm turning the wheel on a wooden galleon as I sail it out of port. When you're in the car, it sounds like it's coming from behind the dash, but it's ambiguous which side. Outside the car, it seems to be coming from the vicinity of the strut mounts, or somewhere towards the top of the strut - not, to my surprise, the control arms or tie rods. I would expect the control arms to produce the vibration if their bushings were shot, but I'm not sure it makes sense that it would be caused by the strut mounts. I got under the car and the bushings generally look OK. I'll post pics soon to confirm. Incidentally, I believe the noise originated sometime after I took a bad railroad crossing too fast. Are there any components besides the mounts themselves which could be worn and causing the creak? Are bad mounts also a likely culprit for vibration? I'm overall unhappy with the stock suspension otherwise - it's hard to get the car to take a set through a corner, and it bounces quite a bit on expansion joints. There's excessive roll on uneven surfaces at low speeds. I see the ROW/M030 options listed at around $3500 for the package, which is out of my budget. Any recommendations for a more affordable replacement for street-only use? I've had lots of luck on previous cars (Miatas, WRXs) with Koni yellow struts and slightly firmer springs for around $1000; I'm hoping to find something that produces the same effect here at a more affordable pricepoint. If I'm going to take the struts out to replacement the mounts, it might be a good time to replace the rest. Thanks!

Man... I know you say that the wheels are balanced... but your shake sure seems to sound like a wheel imbalance. Are you sure you didn't lose a wheel weight ? Did the creak and the shake happen at the same time ? For the creak, I'm looking at the sway bar end links first, next would be top mounts. People have seemed to really like the Bilstein HD and the H&R spring combo. I have no experience with it so can't speak to it directly other than having great experiences with both brands on multiple different cars. I think going that route, being prepared to replace the mounts - have on hand if yours look like junk when you get them out, if they're OK, you can return and replacement sway bar end links - you're in there anyway are a good place to start. If you still feel like the ride is more sloppy than you'd like... then you're into replacing the various suspension arms, easier than doing the bushings discretely IMO. And the big one for maximizing handling - put good rubber on the car.

Thanks for the reply! The vibration has been present in some form or another since I bought the car last July. It had been mostly sitting for years and the tires were old and flatspotted so I figured the vibration was from that. I took it to Discount Tire and got Michelin Pilot Sport All Season 4's on the wheels (stock 18 twists). Vibration was still present. I had them RoadForce balance it and they told me the wheels were just bent enough to cause the vibration, and that there was no guarantee a repair would get them back in spec (they looked pretty banged up from an automatic car wash or something). I don't care about having OEM wheels so I bought Tire Rack's house brand twist clones and had them move the rubber over and re-RoadForce the wheels; it was about the same price as having the OEM wheels repaired but seemed like a safer bet. The vibration was mostly better after that, but has been getting worse again over the past 6 months. I've put about 7500 miles on the car during that time, so I imagine if there was a wear issue with the new tires it would've sorted itself out by now. Interestingly enough, the vibration used to start lower, around 60-65 mph, so it's improved in that regard. The creak started later, about 3-4 months ago. What brand mounts would you recommend? Elephant seems like overkill and OEM seems maybe not durable enough?

Quotes source post: 17414799

The oem is fine. Fcpeuro has front and back packages with meyle and trw parts r priced well. Also search for Feal coilovers. They will be close to your price range and a good discount co. Basically all the suspension rubber is 20+ years old so plan on changing all.