Hi there. I recently bought an RX8 (an R3 in white, which totally rocks!). I noticed that after driving it around for either long or short journeys and whether I push it or not, it makes a regular creaking sound for maybe an hour or so after parking it up and turning off the engine.

I imagine it's due to heat making certain parts expand and then retract as they cool? The regular, intermittent noises can be heard from the bottom of the car from the front pretty much the front all the way back to the rear/exhaust. When I first park up I might hear 20-30 or so creaks in 10 seconds time frame and after maybe an hour, they die down to 3 or 4 within 10 seconds and then eventually stop.
Is this just normal and nothing to worry about?

The car was serviced a few months ago (38K miles) and is just under 3 years old. It drives perfect and can't detect any problems when I'm actually driving. Also the centre compartment by the hand brake can get a little warm. Not sure if that's normal?

 

All of that sounds normal. The sound is just your exhaust cooling down, and the heat in the center console is... your exhaust cooling down through the car.

Please don't forget to add oil regularly.

 

Not sure if this is what you are referring to or not. But on hot days the R3 does have a fan that will kick on even when the car is keyed off. I recall reading in the owner's manual that the fan needs to be locked out/disabled before doing maintenance under the hood.

Perhaps the fan is squeaky?

 

Thanks for the replies. It's not the fan- I've experienced these sounds on other cars I've driven b ut nothing compared to the RX8. I'm glad it's normal

 

Mine does that when i drive the car for a long time, especially on a very hot and humid days, specially here in Vegas.