Hi all, I have been driving my in-law's 2001 Durango for a couple of months (he was nice enough to loan me their spare vehicle while I save my pennies after the lease on my Dakota ended recently.)
I have been doing my best to make sure the things goes back to him in at least as good/better condition than when he loaned it to me (ie changed the oil, replaced the windshield washers, asked him for the recall notice slips so I can have any of them done, etc) However, I have recently noticed loud "squeeking" from the front-end when going-over speed bumps near my house. My guess is with 73K miles on it that maybe the shocks are wearing out? I can reproduce the sound just by pushing down on the front bumper with it parked, but can't tell for sure where the sound is coming from. Any idea how much a diagnosis/replacement set of shocks would run me either from the dealer or a major repair chain? Any other ideas about what could be going-on?

Thanks,
Growlor

 

Most likely the sway bar bushings. Grease them as best you can or replace and grease the new ones.

HTH,

IndyDurango

 

+1 on what indy said, probably the sway bar bushing, but at 73k your shocks could very well be gone, id replace them anyway but thats just me

 

I actually had a squeak up front on mine that turned out to be the connection between the torsion bar and the "A" arm. I had it in a shop looking for the squeak and we were down to squirting oil on a joint, take for test drive. Still here squeak, squirt on another joint, take for another drive and so on. This was after it had been on the rack for 45 minutes looking for anything wrong. The right hand side "A" arm has a kind of octagon hole in it that the torsion bar fits into. That joint was the culprit.

 

Well thanks for that info!


99% of the time it's just the sway bar bushings that need to be greased or replaced however. Then again there's always that 1 %.

 

Any good idea how to get grease in the bushing, mine are squeaking but no room to squirt grease in there.

 

You simply drop the sway bars. You don't even have to remove the tires or jack it up!


You drop the outer edges by the wheels first. I think they are 13mm bolts (2 of them). Pull them out and grease them with some Teflon grease. You can get a small tub at your local towing trailer store for things like hitch's and ball's. Then you can drop the ones on the frame to get to those.

It is advisable to replace them after a good 100k miles. A 5.2L and 5.9L should be the larger (33mm I think) and the 4.7L and 3.9L was the smaller (30mm I think). 2WD's are completely different.

 

when did they offer a 3.9 in the durango??? i have never seen one and assumed that they did not offer it . . .

 

it could be the sway bar, mine is skweeking

 

Thank God it's just the sway bar links, my R/T started squeaking after a road trip, and I thought my ball joints were done. This takes a load off my mind for sure, they are getting greased tomorrow!