If your car squeaks it can be quite irritating. Not just for you but for your neighbors. Yes the repairs can be expensive that’s why it squeaks first to let you know that there’s metal to metal contact. The fastest and cheapest solution is to lubricate it.
Chassis lubrication is fairly inexpensive and can be completed with fairly low skill, provided you have access under your car.
It’s imperative to get some space underneath the vehicle so that you can work safely. My pickup has enough clearance that I can simply crawl underneath it, grease gun in hand, and get the job done. My Porsche needs to be on ramps or safety stands. Either way, make sure the parking brake is on and you place blocks behind the wheels. Toss something thicker than your head, a block of wood or even a spare tire, under there too for insurance.
Now that you’re underneath the car, the procedure is simple–open up the dust boot on the fitting and clean off any grime with a rag so you don’t force dirt inside. Pop the grease gun onto the fitting and pump the trigger until the rubber boot bleeds fresh grease around the edges. Your vehicle may have as many as a dozen fittings on the front suspension. If you own a 4×4 that sees a lot of mud, plan to spend time under the chassis with a grease gun regularly. You may find fittings on tie rod ends, upper and lower ball joints, sway-bar links and control-arm pivots, so hunt around and make sure to hit them all. There might be grease fittings on as many as three U-joints on the driveshaft (or shafts), depending on whether you have a front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Can’t get any grease into the fitting? It’s probably clogged with dried grease or dirt. Squeeze harder on the trigger of the grease gun. Still dry? Unscrew the fitting with a wrench and clean it out with a wire and solvent, or just install a new one from the auto parts store.
It Still Squeaks
There are plenty of other things that can squeak on your car’s suspension. Coil or leaf springs are supposed to have thin plastic insulators to keep metal-to-metal friction from creating noise, but age and the ravages of the road wear these little protectors out or simply cause them to fall off. A temporary solution is to soak that noisy area with spray-on lithium grease. A helper can bounce the car up and down while you crawl around underneath and track down that squeak. If the sound is from a rubber suspension bushing, silicone spray is better. It won’t last as long, but the silicone won’t degrade the rubber bushing.