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MG MGF Technical - Strange squesking noise

My car suffers from a high pitched but fairly quiet squeaking noise (not unlke a mouse in fact) inside the car when going over bumps or rough road surfaces.
The frequency and tone of said noise is enough to drive one insane and is a distraction when driving.
I've doused every moving part of the interior with WD40, STILL it squeaks. Thing is it's very hard to tell exactly where it's coming from.
I've heard tales of squeaky hoods and windscreen surrounds, and also a thread which made reference to a cross-member under the car on which the welds were prone to failing causing this symptom (failed welds? On a Rover? How unusal!)
Can anyone shed any light on what is rapidly becoming my pet hate!
Bob

Bob,

Can't tell you what is it but I think i've got it aswell. Thought i'd tracked it down the other day - the spring on the hood clip to the windscreen frame. Don't think it is but haven't been able to elminate it - don't fancy opening the hood at 70 mph....
The sound i have reminds me of the very early (and rather noisy) CD players when you put a CD in but before it plays it! My solution so far has been either turn the radio up or put the hood down.
It's such a small noise i'd never want to ask anyone to fix it - they'd think i'm a nutter!

Pete
Peter Bates

One thing that squeaks is the seat backs if pushed up against the T-bar, but this source is obvious.

Another thing was the water / oil filler cover under the boot lid, my one does not fit properly so it used to squeak very loudly, I thought it was the suspension or something serious. The cure was a bit of foam rubber stuck to the boot lid above the cover plate to hold it in place.

My steering wheel squeaks against the column cover. My sulution was a little oil between wheel and cover. Needs re-doing every 12 months or so. This noise also very obviously comes from the steering wheel.

Various other dash / trim related squeeks have been reported but it is very hard to track down the source of noise in the F. If it's trim you may be able to track it down by pushing firmly on various bits of trim and panels to see if the squeak stops.

This method may also allow you to check the soft top for sqeaking. Check all the hood mounting clips are tight and no bolts have fallen out. The hard top on some cars seems to vibrate in such a way that the front mounting socket bolts tend to losen and fall out after a while.

If your soft top has a lot of give in it could be that the soft top need re-tensioning. This can be done by tightening the two cables that run back to front in the same way you would tighten brake cables on a bike. This may stop squeaks.

The cross member problem is a sort of graunching crack type sound as far as I know and not a squeak so don't worry about it. I have not had this problem as far as I know, I just suspected I may have had it because I could not track down loud creaking in my suspension. This now appears to be cured.
Tony Smith

I have this feature too ..... I belive it is the cross-member problem but as I don't want to have the dashboard and all others things removed, I'm just living with it (quite annoying in the end)
On rough road, you can hear each time the suspension is working (clicking / cruncking noise from the left or from the right depending on where the bump is)
Jerome


Jerome

I get two irritating noises. One is the black dashboard surround rubbing on the clear perspex. Only happens when the car warms up.

The other sounds like a spring vibrating can't find that one at all!

Rex
Rex

Squeaks and rattles are common place with mgf's as the bodies are designed to flex.This is ment to give a better ride.Having had the pleasure to work on mgf's from first build, i have had to deal with alot of strange noises. Try removing the drivers kick plate, where the interior light sit. The spring clip which holds the coolant pipe, rubs on the centre tunnel. This can cause a high pitch noise.
3fall

And there was me thinking I had the only squeaky F! I've managed to sort one so far, a squeak in the rear driver’s side - the kind of persistent squeak used as a Chinese torture! Turned out to be the back of the driver's seat against the T bar, Half a turn on the recliner and hey presto only another 3 or so to find!!!
Dean

Well my squeeky steering wheel is back, time to get out the oil can again :-). Maybe I will get round to getting it fixed properly one day.

I get small clicking sounds from behind the center console while driving but they are very quiet. It has had this noise from new but it goes away after driving for a while, I think this is just expansion of the dash and movement of cables as the car warms up. Not a real problem.....

I also sometimes get a sort of trickling water sound from the heating every now and then but I put this down to the heater pouring water all over the passenger footwell.

My windows rattle and have always rattled over rough roads. I think that's about it for my expereance of MGF noises.

I have not checked my welds yet but I think as I am getting none of these noises now this is all ok and I just had creaky joints around my polly bushes. It was not the hard top because the suspension creaked if I pushed down on the front of the car.
Tony Smith

This thread was discussed between 03/04/2001 and 09/04/2001

MG MGF Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGF Technical BBS is active now.