2008 Corolla Le - 'spring' Noise? - Toyota Corolla, Chevy Prizm (1998-2008)

Mileage: 79,000 (I know, it's been rode hard already!)

The vehicle belongs to my wife. I've recently been elected to troubleshoot and maintain the vehicle.

I'm more of a Mercedes W124 guy, so I'm kind of learning as I go on these Corolla's. Anyhow..

Symptom:

When turning, reversing + turning, and sometimes even when accelerating straight on what appears to be level ground.. a sound generates from the rear that sounds like a string stretching. That is the best description I can come up with. The car obviously drives great, and to my knowledge, is not suffering any noticeable performance losses. My initial presumption is to assume struts or springs (due to the high miles in a short period of time), but my instinct is telling me it's something else. I've got a few hunches, but would like some 'Corollers' advice before I really begin getting my hands dirty.

Thanks in advance.

Suspension would be my first guess as well. Double check the conditions of the spring isolator (rubber pad that the spring sits on), bushings for the swaybar inside the "beam" in the rear of the car (hit them with some lubrication), check for signs of contact - could be a piece of wire hung up on the bottom of the car (I've seen weirder stuff before). I'd also double check the rear drums - could be a simple case of needing some lubrication on the side contact points of the shoes, as they could be hanging up and "popping" loose as the car changes direction.