Thank you Joey! The grade is just regular, however regular in the Catskills could mean like a 10 mile incline of 45 degrees. Speed I'm going is around 65 but it drops to 45 by the time I'm up on the top of the climb without changing acceleration. I now take my foot off the accelerator and then slowly compress again just to maintain a safe speed up, and still then I hear it struggling. the 2000LRSeriesII is factory, on-road 90% of the time and the last tune up was last year. It has 102,000 miles.
With regards to squeeking, its quite high pitched. The brakes are fine. I'll check the shocks for sure. It mostly comes on when I am using either the heater or fan and it sounds like its coming from the outside right of the car.