It's a 07 prius with 65k miles. I realized that it is making this squeaking noise while going over bumps "ONLY" when the brakes are applied. I have 2 toyota dealerships checked. 1st dealer said no noise and 2nd dealer also said no noise... then, i requested to drive with the mechanic and he somehow heard the noise while i am in the car. I posted a youtube video w/ iphone video if you feel like hearing the noise. Please help... the noise is bugging me.
Since the mechanic heard the noise while driving with you, what was his suggested remedy? Suspension noises can be very hard to identify, but it sounds like you have a bad front strut or strut mount. Replacing the front struts and the top strut mounts will cost you a mid to high three-digit amount.
I had a similiar clunk when my front sway bar links wore out, not expensive to replace. Suggest checking with a garage that specializes with suspension work, should be easy for a mechanic that deals with this to tell what's wrong, the Dealership must have a lot of other work.
I was thinking the sway bar could be a culprit... one thing you could try to diagnose this would be to get some dry silicone lube spray, and hit your sway bar D-blocks in the middle of one of these tests. If that doesn't work, hit the bushings and try again. Still creaking? Then it's probably your struts.
I believe I had the same problem as you are having. The Toyota dealer replaced one front strut and the ABS brake actuator. Total Cost $2554.91. I was lucky I had the extended warranty. My cost was zero. Car had 91000 miles.
I had the exact same noise in my 2006 Prius and I thought the noise was the front strut shocks. At the time I had over 125K on the car so it was long past due. I replaced the struts and still had the exact same noise. I tore down the struts again and replaced the upper strut mounts and it's now nice and quiet. (Too bad I had to do the job twice to figure this out.)
