Front end grunts over speedbumps... struts??

Ed,

You have me really intrigued about this. Think I'm gonna go pick some of this up tomorrow. Winter weather is upon us and I want to get some weatherproofing in. One question...can I spray the entire underneath or will this cause any damage? Is it predominately just needed in the areas you stated?

Thanks!

 

No Just spray it on all the bolt heads and all the moving joints under the car. All suspension components. Get under there an anything that's starting to rust just spray some lube on it. Same under the hood. It will repel water and stop the rusting. Make sure you spray the trans resolver electrical connector to repel water. Its the electrical connector right above the 2 small Inverter coolant hoses on the side of the trans.
That connector rots out since its exposed to fod and water and when it goes it totals the trans.

Don't spray any CSP on any exhaust component. Although I did paint my muffler when it was new with header black paint. Still looks new today. Looks better from the back with no bare metal showing through the valence. But it stopped the muffler from rusting too.

Almost 7 years old and no rust anywhere. Rust will drive you crazy and ruin your car and very easy and cheap to mitigate.

Grease will not hurt the car. The CSP is more spray grease then say WD40 and does not smell. CSP stays where you spray it. It's a great product which means they should be pulling it from the shelves any day now lol.
I can only find it down here in HD.

Spray front suspension and back. No more rust and no more squeeks and grunts if you do it right. Its a periodic maintenance thing. My cars look brand new underneath. None of my cars squeek or grunt.

Also spray the cv boots with Black magic Protectant. Keeps them from cracking. Last forever if conditioned.
Most cv joints fail because the boot fails and the grease is contaminated.

This is not new. Its old school.

 

I am having the same issue as you. I have 2011 Prius II w/62k. I noticed it a few months ago. It's driving me crazy. Also embarrassing if people are in the car and hear it. This crunching noise has gotten worse over time. I wasn't able to get the tech at the dealership pinpoint what exactly it is. Something with the front suspension. I went ahead and replaced the front struts. The noise is still there! Now is the grunt work of finding time to go into the dealership and getting the same tech to replace the smaller pieces of the suspension. Anything rubber from the strut mount to the base will be checked and possibly replaced. I can't live with the noise. The tech did say at one point it was normal suspension noise!! haha I about punched him in the face. Did you find the culprit? I will update here if I can find it.

 

I have similar issue. Replace the struts and all rubber insulator around the struts mount and spring seat. The noise is still there on the bumpy road and the body is flexing, but the handling improves a lot after 205k miles on the original struts which is still firm enough. I will try to replace the sway bar links and spray the bushing with silicon spray. The noise also depends on temperature, it is reduced in the
hot day

 

My 2007 Prius has made a creak/grunt/clunking noise from the front end since ~30K miles (i'm now at 94K). I made this video to document it. Is this similar to what you hear?

 

Interesting info here. I have one of those grunting noises on uneven surfaces and I'm scratching my head as everything looks good in front end suspension.

I may need to oil things indeed. That Blaster's 16-CSP
is just sprayable petrolatum. I may use Vaseline instead. Vaseline is also good for car rubber and seals but can't be used on latex of course (LOL).

 

I’m going to follow this thread. I have a creaking noise similar to a few others here. It only happens during braking while turning or braking while hitting a bump.

 

not Sure why you equate that product with Vaseline. It’s a spray grease it’s nothing like Vaseline.
Vasline will be impossible to get it into the areas you need to spray into.

 

You must be new to a g2. They have loud brakes first time you step on them if the car lives outside.
Slightest rust buildup on th rotors makes the brakes on a g2 creak. Since regen braking greatly assists slowing the car down the hydraulic brake pads never get to grab and clean the rotors real hard. Like a normal car.
A good maintence thing to do with creaking brakes is get the car up to speed like 60 miles an hour and with no traffic and no one behind you put the car in neutral and apply the brakes firmly. Do that a few times every now and then. After doing that just put the car in drive and drive away.

But if that has never been done you may have a lot of bad rust buildup on the rotors. Take a nice clear picture of the rotor surface thru the front wheel spokes and post it here. Let me look at them.

G2s that are garaged don’t suffer this issue. My car Is garaged and at 120000 miles the rotors look perfect really shiny. But if it sits outside all day during a rainstorm it will creak.

 

did you click on the link in my post?

 

Which struts did you use?

 

Kyb

 

Yes I’m new to the gen 2 forums and hybrids in general.

I tried this method and it seems to have worked. I haven’t heard any noise coming from the front these past few days. I’ll follow up if the noise returns.

 

Resurrecting an old thread here to comment that this fix also worked for me. My '08 Prius (with only 53K miles) was exhibiting the same symptoms - clunks and crunches from the front suspension (both sides) when driving over speedbumps or into driveways, particularly when the front wheels were askew, i.e. one wheel first over the bump or into the driveway entrance, then the other, and when coming to a stop over a slightly bumpy or uneven surface. I started to notice this about a year ago, and the occurence of it was becoming more frequent over time. Sound was identical to that heard in the YouTube video by rocketrob in post #45.

I sprayed silicone lubricant onto the lower control arm bushings, stabilizer bar bushings, and tie rod bushings. I was able to do this in my driveway with the front wheels turned first all the way to one side, and then all the way the other side, so I could access the bushings without needing to jack up the car. I let the spray soak in for a while then went for a drive. Noise is gone. Total cost was $5 and maybe 30 minutes, most of which was spent doing Google searches to figure out where all of the various bushings were located. Thanks edthefox for the suggestion!