I’m looking at buying a 2014 Mazda BT-50 but when taking it for a test drive, there was a significant squeaking at take-off up to 30km/h. Is it possibly the centre bearing on driveshaft? The vehicle has done 210,000km. Also the exhaust has been cut shorter to give turbo noise on deceleration. What effect can this have on the motor/turbo?
A squeak when taking off from rest could be anything from a brake problem to a wheel bearing fault, a noisy engine drive-belt, bent axle, a dry suspension bush, worn universal joint or just about a hundred other things, including the driveshaft you already suspect.
Of potentially greater concern is the cut-off exhaust system or, more correctly, the previous owner. Anybody who cuts up an exhaust to make more noise is also a likely candidate to have driven the vehicle hard. It might be better to find a vehicle that hasn’t been messed with and potentially abused.
A sawn-off exhaust system shouldn’t harm the turbocharger or engine, but it can make a difference to performance due to reduced back-pressure. It also makes me wonder what else has been changed of fiddled with in the name of more power. Sometimes the performance will actually be improved, but you also open a can of legal and insurance worms by changing things like factory exhaust systems in what is a fairly agricultural way.