Quick question...

Does the weight need to be taken off the front wheels to do this (ie jack, axle stands, remove wheels), or can these be changed out with the car driven up on ramps?

No need to take the weight off the wheels or remove them, but the nuts that hold the D brackets are pricks of things to get at without putting the car up on a hoist. I tried but gave up, so one of the very few DIY jobs on my 380 I elected to let a mechanic do instead.

Okay thanks Kim.

Will give it a crack and see if I can get my skinny arms in there with the car on ramps.

I don't like climbing under the car, even with axle stands. It's ramps or else I'm not getting under it!

Well, have done this... And it didn't correct the creak/knock sound.

I think it's going to need a suspension specialist.

During the recent service they sprayed some sort of spray lube onto the top connection of the swaybar endlink where it attaches to the strut.

Anyone else had trouble with the end links, or had to remove and re-torque them? Perhaps this is where my noise is coming from.

Spraying some silicon lube in various spots may help identify the cause of the noise.

On cars with rear shock absorbers mounted with rubber spacers, it was often that the rubbers compressed with age, allowing the steel shocker shaft to rub on the steel mount, causing horrid noises. This might be similar problem. You could pull a few things off and look for metal on metal contact, ie shiny patches.

Have tried that to no avail. Have had car on ramps and wiggled/poked at everything with a pry bar and nothing is obvious.

The fact that in the service they sprayed lube on the sway bar bushes and the noise immediately started still suggests it is sway bar related.

I'm going to disconnect the sway bar end links and take it for a drive today and see if the noise disappears. If so, I guess I will be ordering some new endlinks.

Nope, not the endlinks.
I guess that leaves the strut, CVs or other things which I don't want to tackle myself.
So frustrating.

Is booked into a brake/clutch/suspension specialist on Monday.

Have a feeling it may the front left caliper. Seems to have a lot of slop in the direction of wheel rotation (up and down). I think this is why it creaks when taking off after stopping with the brakes. Hopefully just shimming the pads properly or replacing/lubing the caliper pins will be enough to stop the clunk.

If it's not brake related, it may be CV joint I guess (but I'd be very surprised if it is after 67,000km.

Anyone know if CV joints form part of the 10 year drivetrain warranty?

im pretty sure the powertrain warranty does cover cv joints, it will be in your warranty book. you have to be the original owner though, the 10 year part isn't transferrable

Yeah, I'm the original owner.

It does say driveshafts are all covered in the warranty book so I think that is pretty clear.

Worse case scenario is the noise is coming from the strut/spring assembly... In which case it's not covered by warranty.

See what the brake place says on Monday.

Well this had an interesting outcome.

The noise has continued for the last 12 months but hasn't got any worse, so I assumed it was just a caliper or pad with a little bit of play and have just put up with it.

Went in for a service today and I told them about it. They re-lubed the sway bar bushes (but I lubed them well when installed) but they also said they had to re-tension some front suspension cross member bolts. And on the drive home I haven't heard it (however that's not always a guarantee its fixed!).

Anyone know which cross member bolts they have re-torqued? Seems strange that a car with only 70,000km on stock standard suspension has loose bolts?

I did all my suspension bolts up in my awd magna because of noises under braking and certain turns and totally alleviated the problem. Good idea to check out suspension components every 50k or so, I am sure they do it at the mits services also.