[e92328i998]

My wife drives a 2011 328i with about 55k miles. So far it has been a great vehicle with very little in the way of required maintenance. We just followed the normal CBS cycle (yearly oil changes instead of waiting to 16k miles though). It hasn't even gone through a set of brakes yet! I just replaced the original Continental Runflats with the new Bridgestone DriveGuards and the ride,handling, and noise have improved tremendously. The only issue I have is when going over speed bumps at more than a crawl or hitting a dip in the road there is a creaking sound which at first I thought was bottoming out. After climbing under the car, there is no evidence that the undercarriage was scraping. I had the vanos recall completed last week and they did an overall inspection of the car. I asked them to look at the shocks and they said they were fine. Not really sure what this could be. any ideas? It doesn't seem to affect handling or ride.

[Efthreeoh]

Probably the accordion covers over the shock pistons, they come loose from the strut body and make noise when the suspension compresses over slow-speed bumps.

[e92328i998]

Are you referring to the upper seat (may be using the wrong word here) that the spring goes up into? How do you tighten this?

[Efthreeoh]

No. They are soft plastic covers that look like an accordion, which cover the shock pistons. The covers are inside the coil spring. They attach to the top of the strut body where the piston enters the shock body (at the base of the spring). The come loose and hang from the top of the strut. Once they become loose, they can make noise going over bumps. At slow speeds, when there is low road noise, you can sometimes hear them.