can cold ruin sway bar links?

[kevinkay]

First bitter cold day and front end squeak/creaking at very slow speed, even applying brakes at stop will make it creak.
relatively new (last year) "OME" sway bars.
No noise when bouncing the front at either fender.

I think my sway bars gave out in cold!

[Ricky Bobby]

Could be your bushings on the bars themselves dry and cracked

[jdstrickland]

The links should be fine, the rubber bushings, on the other hand, not so much. But noise is not failure, and cold is a bad time to be fixing stuff. Give it a week or two to warm up, then clean the rubber bushings. (Item 2, RealOEM.com - Online BMW Parts Catalog)

I'd not expect much noise from the sway bar, my guess is that your lower control arm bushings are the real problem, (Items 7 & 11, RealOEM.com - Online BMW Parts Catalog).

[kevinkay]

Thank You
Thank You

[kevinkay]

Could this be a clue??

ran out to Home Depot, on the way back stopped at a red light, with just light back and forth turning of the steering wheel (not even enough to really turn the wheel) gave off awful "creaking" noise from front left wheel.
pulled over when I could and turned the wheel all the way to left to look in. Nothing looked out of place and gave each suspension part a grab - nothing felt loose.
Went back to driving and could not replicate the noise when turing the wheel only the "creaking" on small bumps and jumping on the brake.
Makes me more convinced its one of the rubber bushings that got popped back in with extreme turing the wheel???
just got to find out which one!!??

THANKS!

[4.8isX5]

I had a bad creaking noise last winter when turning the wheel.. Sounded like something with the power steering however it was the front right lower control arm balljoint.

You can also get creaking/popping noise from worn cv axle joints... I see your at 175k+ if youve never done a full front end suspension refresh then its a combination of balljoints and bad links..

Can also be cv's at that mileage, mine are doing it now at 110k but my boots were torn for over 50k lol.

[kevinkay]

thanks.
I did that sides ball joint when I did the bearing on that side within the last 2 years. I have done boots 3 times on each side and caught them in time before any damage to joint - cleaned up and re-greased. Its not the typical "clicks/snaps" like when CV joints are worn.

Wish I did like you said - a whole re-fresh at certain milage intervals, I did it piecemeal as each worn out. That theory of mixing new tight suspension parts with older ones put mores stain on the old stuff. I am hoping its what Ricky Bobby and jdstrickland said - its the bushings on the bar between the sway bars. The creaking is very close to the noise that prompted me to change the sway bars. And when I pulled out the old sway bars I felt they were not significantly tighter/better then the new one, but new ones cleared the problem.

THANKS!

[X53Jay4.8is]

Originally Posted by kevinkay

First bitter cold day and front end squeak/creaking at very slow speed, even applying brakes at stop will make it creak.
relatively new (last year) "OME" sway bars.
No noise when bouncing the front at either fender.

I think my sway bars gave out in cold!

Sway bars are solid metal. Highly unlikely that they gave out.

[jdstrickland]

With worn bushings, you might not see anything that looks out of place. And, the bushings become hard when they are cold, and they make noise when the stuff they are isolating start moving around.

You can have worn bushings at any or all of the locations that have already been suggested, as well as at the lower ball joint that is shown in one of the pictures given but not discussed yet.

When you turn the steering wheel while the vehicle is not moving, you get to hear all sorts of things that happen because the movement of the tires against the stationary chassis forces the cold, hard rubber to move about in the supports. The metal stuff is pretty robust and not subject to wear. That is, the bars and rods do not wear, but the parts that move will wear. Your noise is most likely from worn, hard and dry, rubber. This is a good place to use OE parts, avoid the cheap Chinese junk. You want factory parts, or better. Certainly you do not want less than factory quality rubber parts.

[axgordon]

The described creaking noise frequently caused by dried grease in the ball joints including sway bar links and outer tie rod ends. The inner tie rod is also suspect but happens less frequently and the creaking sound from them is muffled compared to outer ends. I was able to quiet creaking ball joints by injecting penetrating oil (WD40) thru rubber boot using medical syringe with small needle. Injecting 1-2cc of penetrating oil quickly stops noise allowing you time to procure new parts. I am not recommending this approach as permanent fix, but it for sure stops annoying screeching.