2012 Mk3.5 Knocking noise driving slowly

Hi mine has 32k on the clock and has been on the ramps and it’s mint underneath. We have pulled on the droplinks but there is no movement in the fronts and only a slight creak from the one rear. The problem is as I am trundling along through town at around 20mph there is a knock knock knock from underneath which ties in with suspension movement. It sounds like metal on metal. It is audible from outside the car too so quite embarrassing! I don’t really want to start swapping stuff out to find out what the issue is. Everything is clean and shiny as it’s a dry weather car so no corrosion at all. I am just baffled as to what it is and what to do. The mechanic cannot find anything obvious like springs or wheel bearings. It sounds like it’s coming from the front end. There is a video on YT where a guy is pulling on his worn droplinks and its making exactly the same metalic sounds but mine don’t move. The weird thing is it doesn’t do it immediately but only after I have driven half a mile or so. Any ideas appreciated.

By the way it has the factory Bilstein set up.

Now don’t get me wrong and go changing stuff just on my say so but…
I went through this myself but a rattling from the rear. Droplinks replaced all round (I had a front one broken anyway) everything possibly checked I could still rattled.
Now it was as you describe, going slow over slightly uneven roads, going over speed bumps or hitting the occasional pothole, nothing no rattle. A few posts have brought up similar, members asking the same questions why the rattling. Some have said it’s the bump stops other say a plastic collar around the top of the shock, most have been on about Bilsteins. Mine were Bilsteins and I had lowering springs fitted, changed over from those from stock.
I decided the lowering of the car with the springs wasn’t for me in the end and went the whole hog and had the whole lot swapped out for MeisterR’s. Guess what, the rattling stopped, bliss, money well spent.
As I said it could be something else but that was my problem, input from others will help you I’m sure.:+1:

Hmm,I have an NC and recently had a noise from the o/s rear,sounded like a nail or screw in the tyre but louder, certainly increased in noise with speed, couldn’t find anything wrong and suspected a wheel bearing, bizarrely the noise has stopped after a run and didn’t return,any one else had this,standard set up on a 1.8 NC

Thanks for the replies. It’s certainly not like something is in the tyre as that would be a constant noise as the tyre rotates. This is definitely consistent with movement of the car as the suspension moves. Very annoying. Because I don’t know what it it’s putting me off driving the car in case it suddenly turns serious and fails. I won’t go down the route of changing the whole suspension as that’s too drastic and I like the set up as it is. I am going to take it to an MX5 place to get it fully looked at but was interested to know what you guys thought from similar experiences. Thanks.

Have you checked the tightness of all the bolts on the subframe? There are a number of 10 or 12mm bolts holding metal covers to the subframe and below gearbox could be these aren’t tightened up fully causing a rattle.

I had something similar with mine (also a 2012 car) a couple of years ago. A metallic click from under the car, usually when braking & when setting off.

This started immediately after a service - certainly wasn’t doing it before. Took it back to the garage & after a considerable amount of investigation they said that the lower bolts securing both front dampers to the bottom wishbones had mysteriously started to work loose! Very strange because no suspension work’s ever been done.

So they tightened those up & the noise hasn’t occurred since.

Thanks for the replies.
I am pleased to say it’s sorted. Big shout out to the guys at Island Garage Stafford for sorting it. They spent ages looking at everything then found it was the front droplinks after all. There was no movement from them when you pulled on them but by slowly moving the car over a hump with someone listening they tracked it down but it was tough because it wasn’t obvious on the ramp at all. So new ones fitted and all sorted. Best of all they did it under warranty so beer money owed to them. Very pleased.

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