Originally Posted by meep
In fact, it flexed or regular roads more than any other car I noticed. Hopping the curb to my driveway at crawl resulted in door and dash creaking. Door creaked on gently rolling pavement. I finally stuck my fingers between the door and roof one day with the window down and could feel the door moving up and down relative to the roof as a matter of driving a 25mph residential road.
For a lesson in body rigidity trying putting a volvo s60 on 4 jack stands. All cars will flex a little, as the jack stands themselves probably aren't on glass-level concrete, but they'll give a little and settle in. The S60 was less cooperative, usually with one of the four stands not contacting the car. I'd have to shuffle them around for a bit or keep the jack in play above the loose jack stand for stability. Those vehicles are .stiff.
Thats interesting, as what Shannow said, I faced a smiliar issue with my previous car. I was speeding on the highway once and sudddenly a truck stopped and i had to brake hard, the whole car chattered and after that I heard a tick tick tick sound coming from the dash/windshield at 80kmh and above, i thought it was the speedometer cable, so i slowed down and the sound went away , i sped up it came back, I stopped the car to check in the engine bay thinking perhaps my gearbox is giving trouble, but I dont see anything wrong. So i continued my journey, then a few minutes later, all of a sudden a loud pop, and immediately the windscreen started cracking and the cracks slowly spread all throughout the glass. I know there was no stone hitting the glass, so I surmised it must have been chassis flex. You see, at hard corners or going up inclines with either front wheels, the door ajar warning would come on, indicating that the doors have somehow twisted away from the switches, it must have been chassis flex, That car also had lots of squeaks and rattles over bad roads, but it was a econobox after all.
Now my current car is a luxury car ,though its old it seems to be in better condition than my previous car. But lately I have been getting some vibrations on bad roads and some creaks on braking, that seems to be coming from the pillar trims. It didnt have this sound before so maybe I have put back the trims wrongly after the reverse camera install.
Granted the left door is sagging on the hinges, in this case is the chassis flexing ?The door ajar warning is not coming on and when I take hard smooth pavement high speed corners I dont hear any pops or creaks. This car is much better built than my previous car and the creaks is like only 1/10th of it, but I am still worried. Is my chassis flexing ? Its a 89 toyota soarer, which is basically a Mk3 supra with no targa top.So is it possible my braking creaks are coming from suspension mounts and or the inner trims or sagging doors instead of chassis flex ?