This must not be ignored. Common causes of squeaks are control arm bushings and ball joints. Control arm bushings used to last the life of the car, but today they are made from softer rubber to improve ride quality. That means they wear out faster. Worn bushings will also prevent the alignment from remaining in specs, so they can cause rapid tire wear, drifting to one side, steering wander, and directional instability when braking or accelerating. They will rarely cause total loss of steering control.
Ball joints are a different story. Ford uses a design that has a very high failure rate. It is called a "rubber-bonded socket" in which the two parts are just glued together with molten rubber. With repeated turning of the steering wheel, the rubber eventually tears, which can lead to total loss of steering control and a trip into the ditch or oncoming traffic. Ford uses the same design for their outer tie rod ends. No other manufacturer has ever used this design. In fact, the only way to get a replacement part of the rubber-bonded socket design is to get one from the dealership's parts department. Most shops replace these parts with a much-improved design from aftermarket manufacturers. Those are identical to what all other manufacturers have used since almost forever, and will include a grease fitting. When you get the oil changed, you will need to tell the mechanic about that so it gets greased regularly. Otherwise we know to not bother looking for grease fittings on Ford products. Sorry to say a number of other manufacturers are going this route to save money.
As a side note, given the age of your car and the mileage you listed, there is a real good chance the ball joints and tie rod ends have been replaced already, so you might have the better parts on your car. Many of the original parts wore out in as little as 15,000 miles on the older Escorts and Tempos. Those on the larger cars lasted longer, but rarely more than 50,000 miles.
Any time you hear a squeak or rattle, have the steering and suspension systems inspected at a tire and alignment shop. Many of them offer this service at no charge, and most others do not charge for inspections if you have the repairs done there. This applies to any brand of car, but it is much more serious and important with Ford products, particularly their front-wheel-drive cars. I was involved with one car that went from the first noticeable squeak to a separated ball joint in 700 miles. Fortunately that person just skidded into the ditch at a low speed.
As for the struts, those do not cause squeaks, but they can cause a bumping sound if they become really worn. Worn struts have to be ignored a real long time before they get that bad. Even then, they will not cause loss of steering control. A strut does the job of a shock absorber, but it is also a structural part of the suspension system that holds the wheel straight up and in alignment. The engineers neglected to include an alignment adjustment for "camber", so to get the best tire wear possible, the only thing you can do is maintain correct ride height. That is the job of the coil springs which are mounted around each front strut. As those springs sag with age, all the geometric angles of the steering and suspension parts change from how it was designed to be shaped. This leads to horrendous alignment angle changes as the car goes up and down over bumps in the road. That is what leads to rapid tire wear.
During a pre-alignment inspection, a conscientious mechanic is going to want to get ride height back up to where it is supposed to be. That means replacing the coil springs. The springs also have to be removed when replacing the struts, and be reinstalled onto the new struts. That carries a high degree of risk for the mechanic because those springs are under very high pressure when they're removed. I saw one squirt out of the special compressor and take out an 8-foot light fixture. Another one got loose and bounced all the way across the shop and out the door. A careless mechanic could be killed by one of these springs getting loose. This is another place the aftermarket manufacturers have come to your rescue. They offer assemblies that include the new struts with new coil springs already installed, along with all the other parts that can cause less-serious but annoying problems. That gets your ride height and ride quality addressed all at once. The parts cost only a little more this way, but the time to do the service is greatly reduced. Overall, you get a better product, a better repair, and for lower cost.
Here is a link to an article that addressing other noises:
https://www.2carpros.com/articles/popping-noise
This shows some of the other things we check for during inspections.
Here is where you can find a list of other articles that will explain some of things your mechanic tells you about your car:
https://www.2carpros.com/articles
You might get a better idea of what is involved with the repairs, and the symptoms and problems those things can cause:
Wednesday, September 26th, 2018 AT 7:26 PM
