I've noticed that lately the driver's side rear has been more vocal over bumps. Thinking it might be in my head, I decided to take the each side of the car over a speed bump independently. The when the driver's side rear tire goes over the bump there is certainly a noise that I can't hear when either front tire or the passenger's side rear tire hits the bump. Today I took the car to the dealer. They told me that to fix it they are ordering new rear axle nuts. Now, I'm no mechanic so I'm wondering if this sounds right? I assume the rear suspension is having issues and they come up with the rear axle nuts.

Anyone else have a similar issue? Anyone think this sounds odd? Also, if it does turn out that these nuts fix the problem, why would they need replacing and is this indicative of future/other issues I may have?

Well funny you should post this today...I too have been hearing a certain noise coming from the rear drivers side suspension. Usually it was when going over bumps or when I was driving the car up and down my parking garage (at work) and making a turn. This morning while driving into the parking garage I went over a speed bump and immediately noticed that there was a new noise coming from the rear of the car.
Also the rear end felt very loose. I knew something was wrong. Once I parked I noticed that if I put the car in reverse and tried to back out of my parking spot it would make an awefull scraping noise.

Upon further inspection I realized that the nut that attaches the rear control arm (actually the arm where the swaybar attaches to on the rear drivers side) had come off where the arm attaches to the spindle by means of a threaded end. This threaded end had slid out of the hole in the spindle and moved down about an inch away from the inside lip of my wheel when the car was parked. It ended up scraping a huge gash about 1" from the inside lip of my 19" Axis Hiro wheel all the way around. The car is undriveable now until the nut I ordered gets here from Mazda. I'll try to post some pics tomorrow when I bring my digital camera to work. Really sucks though as I just ruined my rear left wheel.

monz: that is bad...I wonder if you pushed the issue they would be forced to replace your rim too?

Upon further inspection I realized that the nut that attaches the rear control arm (actually the arm where the swaybar attaches to on the rear drivers side) had come off where the arm attaches to the spindle by means of a threaded end. to work.

I read another post recently where a cross-threaded nut was found on a rear suspension component. Could be one loser working with the rear suspension assembly at the plant. Guess it would be a good idea to crawl under the car and have a look at all the nuts and bolts. Will do that soon myself.

Yeah. I just picked up the nut from Mazda. After work I'm going to install it so I can drive my car home. Then I'm going to go over all the nuts in the rear suspension. Just sucks I messed up a rim. And of course the dealer won't cover anything because I have aftermarket springs.

Go48 may be referring to the cross-threaded cross-bolt that I found on my right rear strut tower while I was swapping in my rear spring set. This bolt is located inside the trunk, beneath the carpeting/liner and helps to stabilize the rear tower geometry, at least when properly installed. I heard noises similar to those being discussed and after I removed the bolt, cleaned the threads, and re-installed said bolt the noise was gone. A completely different issue than the one being reported but I think Go48's point was that even the Japanese-built cars are susceptible to manufacturing defects these days. Is this a version of exported Western culture?

Charles