997 GT3 squeaking steering and left front rattle

[WindyM]

Passed MoT last week with no advisories.
Drove it 150 miles on Monday (mostly motorway) to a B&B in Kegworth. As I was parking up I was conscious of a rattling noise front left and the steering squeaks from left to right. Had a quick visual inspection and all seemed okay.
On Tuesday, put it to the back of my mind and attended the PCGB track day at Donington. It drove faultlessly all day including 2 laps driven by an instructor much harder than I drive it.
Noticed the noise again on the drive home. I only hear it at low speeds.
I will blag some ramp time from my local tyre fitter but wondered if it was something obvious?
Thanks
Windy

[IanG1]

Lower coffin arm ball joint would be my first port of call. Mine did this but bear in mind if you raise the wheel it may not squeak without load. Did the pair on mine and all noises went away.

[Slippydiff]

WindyM said:

Passed MoT last week with no advisories.
Drove it 150 miles on Monday (mostly motorway) to a B&B in Kegworth. As I was parking up I was conscious of a rattling noise front left and the steering squeaks from left to right. Had a quick visual inspection and all seemed okay.
On Tuesday, put it to the back of my mind and attended the PCGB track day at Donington. It drove faultlessly all day including 2 laps driven by an instructor much harder than I drive it.
Noticed the noise again on the drive home. I only hear it at low speeds.
I will blag some ramp time from my local tyre fitter but wondered if it was something obvious?
Thanks
Windy

Could be a number of items :

Worn strut top mounts.

Worn anti-roll bar drop link ends

Worn/dry coffin arm inner bushes or outer ball joints

Strut damper rod bearings.

Good luck sorting it.

[lingus75]

I had a similar noise on my 997 turbo. OPC and most others said coffin arms and 1k fix. Local Indy said as I don’t drive it much they reckon control arm should be first port of call as probably dried out through lack of use.

I took their advice and it was a £70 part and local garage who mot my families cars fixed it in 30minutes.

I would go this route first?

[WindyM]

Thanks for all the suggestions.
Many of them look like MoT items, so I'm surprised they weren't showing signs of wear a fortnight ago.
It's going in for some work next Thursday so I'll add this to the list!

[vernz]

+ 1 on coffin arms.

I had mine changed on my 997. Similar symptoms. It's noticeable at slow speeds and the grease has probably dried out completely in the warm weather.

My Indy at the time told me not to lose too much sleep over it and come in for replacements when I got fed up with the noise!

It's a few years back now but I seem to remember paying somewhere between £350.00 and £400.00

[Digga]

FWIW when I took my 996 turbo in to Center Gravity, they found some infinitesimally small amounts of play in one of the track rod ends. They local guys who I use for MOT (run by an old school friend) are very through - not the sort of place to pass cars through on a nod and a wink - and they'd not flagged the issue, but it most definitely was there, once you knew where to look.