5XBenzs

08 ML320 w/Airmatic: Replaced upper and lower control arms; sway bar bushings and control arm links yet the front end now squeaks, especially on an abrupt low-speed stop or going over the driveway curb.

Tried disconnecting the sway bar links and loosening the upper control arm bolts. It changed nothing and I tightened those back up. Last night I loosened the wishbone to lower control arm bolt, and thought I had it solved. Nope.

Today I tried loosening the wishbone bolt and the front lower control arm bolt, again to no effect. I haven't tried loosening the rear control arm bolts because they are fixed in place.

HELP!

Joshinator99

1. Was everything torqued to spec with a quality torque wrench or just zipped down with an impact?
2. Did you tighten up the suspension with the suspension loaded or unloaded with the truck in the air on the lift?

if it’s the latter in either scenario you’re going to get noise.

vesiadog

I went thru a ton of trouble shooting on my 2008 GL550 and it ended up being the inner tie rods… first replaced the outlets for a tiny bit of slop but the inners were extremely tight.. well after changing the outers and doing some more testing it was obvious the inners were the noise.
Lots of Youtube video’s out there on chasing noise on 164 chassis. I would bounce on the running board while holding onto the roof rack and could get the noise to repeat. so my son and I would start disconnecting stuff and finally when we disconnected the tie rods .. got it.
I had one shop swear up and down it was the front struts.. it was not $$$