Springtime has been welcomed in my home. I enjoy not freezing my tail off, but it has also brought some not so nice things. One of which is a creaking and groaning noise from the front suspension of my '95 854. It is definitely tied to steering, not compression/rebound of the suspension. Think power steering sound, only mechanical rather than hydraulic. A quick inspection of the suspension revealed nothing out of the ordinary (ball joints, tie-rods and sway bar links all tight).

It appears to only exhibit this phenomenon when the car (and ambient temperature) is good and warm. For example, it didn't do it this morning (40deg and cold car) but did it for the trip to the grocery store tonight (63deg and warm car). It's only been doing it for a couple days, so maybe time will show that the temperature thing is bogus.

So what is it? I figure the answer will be strut mounts, but would like some backup here. The noise does not sound to me like the "crunchy" bearing sound I'm used to, but I suppose it could be very different for a worn bearing under this loading. Which brings me to another question. What sort of bearing is the strut mount? Plain old ball, tapered roller, angular contact?

Thanks,
Will
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850 / Mini