Coilover noise
 

As I'm driving down the road I go over minor bumps and dips and I hear a "clunk" from my rear coilovers. I pull over to see if the top hat is loose and all the bolts are tight. I check the damper body bolt and it's snug. If I could describe the sound it's like "the headboard for your bed is hitting the wall." I thought some of the noise would be from the spare tire so I took it out and the noise still there. When I got home I raised up the rear of the car and took my wheels off and looked at all the bushings and joints and all seemed visually fine. No tears or cracks in the ball joint boot and there's no slack in the upper arm bushings. Is there something that I'm overlooking?

I think its your exhaust hitting something

It's not the exhaust. If I'm at a stop and start to roll forward it will also make that noise and if I bounce on the rear corners of the car. I checked the lower mounting bolt and it's tight. I'm thinking maybe the pillowball is defective or the damper valve is bottoming out. While I'm driving and I do hit a minor bump the noise is loud very noticeable in the area where the filler neck is for the gas tank and in the same area on the other side so it's gotta be something that has to do with the upper mount I'm guessing.

What coilovers?

I have the same fuking noises and it is annoying as shyt!!!

I was googling "coilover clunk noise" and I found that there were alot of people having the same issue as I am. No matter how expensive or how cheap the coilover is the top hat has metal bumpers or metal bushings. So in essence it's metal to metal contact that you hear. What most of the people did to resolve this issue was to either warranty replace the rear as a pair and lubricate the heck out of the pillowball and thread on the height adjustments, or dismantle the coilovers and use oem top hats. In almost all car forums I found this issue very common with exactly same issues. Even Tein had stated that it was "normal" coilover noise. I don't know about everyone else but the clunk noise is a PITA especially if you guys are like me and desire perfection. So who else on here has this issue?

i get the same crap too when hitting a bump but it sounds like it comes from the gas tank side only.

Mine don't make that noise, buddyclub ftw

Metal top hats will do that

I love my BC coilovers, but i noticed during the cold temps. it makes kind of a creaching noise when going slowly over bumps. Did your coils happen to make this??

During cold temperature it does make a creaking noise which is normal but the clunk I encountered is very audible. Okay so I took it to my technicians shop and had it diagnosed. He said " the heim joint (pillowball) has worn out in it's seat. Looks like I'm going to have to do a warranty.

Not that i have ever heard, but I don't go that slowly over bumps

I had that noise on the coilovers you got from Tin, I just hosed the springs and all the bushings down with silicon grease and they have been quiet since. If they get too dry and all those bushings...they make noise but key is to keep them lubed up!

glad my pss9's dont do this

ah, nice, thanks for the heads up

Np...just to clear, it's not that clunking noise but the squeaking noise...like bushing or spring making squeaks...sorry if I wasn't clear...doing too many things at the same time!!

i understood, i did have to use google translate, though lol jk

Thank you, come again! LMAO!

Sorry to bring the thread back but I'm getting the exact same thing you were. Did you replace the bearings and did that fix the problem? Thanks

I took several different approaches. The first time I just asked for a warranty, so I did. 2 weeks later the sound came back. So I decided to switch the one I just got exchanged to the opposite side. The sound had traveled to the side I swapped it to. So automatically I knew it had to have been on that one coilover. After being annoyed, I decided to take it apart and see if putting washers on the collars that separate the pilowball on the upper mount and underside of the mount would distort the noise. The sound definitely was less audible but still there. I took it even further and took apart another set of coilovers and switched top hats and that solved my problem.

So it was something to do with the tophats. Thanks for the reply!