Poqman

My '02 has 86k miles. In VA, many of our interstate highways are concrete. These have expansion gaps and small ripples in the pavement that sometimes sets off a vibration above 60 mph where the car feels like the tires are hopping. Front and rear seem equally bad. As soon as this happens and I brake, the "shutter" of the vehicle subsides. This is not the case on asphalt highways. The car rides smooth at all speeds up to 80. That's as fast as I'll go with our troopers around every corner. This leads me to believe it is not a tire balance problem. I'm thinking the struts may be worn out. Before I take the car into the dealer, does anyone know how to test at home? If the dealer says they should be replaced, would you suggest sticking with the OEM's? Tein's coilovers seem pricey and I don't see Ksports discussed much in these threads as an alternative.

Bon

The classic was it to push down on each corner of your car with your knee and watch the rebound. The suspension should dampen the rebound in about 1.5 cycles maximum. 2+ bounces is way too much and the damper is shot. You can also look at the struts and look for any wetness that suggests leaking. 50-60K miles is the typical replacement schedule for struts.

scdroptop

iTrader: (1)

+1 ^^ Bon is right...most inspections are done with the old school knee push and looking for leaking.

Poqman

Great feedback! I just got finished looking for signs of leaking around each strut and doing the push down test. There was no sign of leaking and the rebound was damped in one cycle. Given that I know I have a problem and the car is well over the 50-60k mile replacement schedule, what would you recommend first: 1) would you recommend just replacing the struts as good maintenance and see if it fixes it..........or 2) take it to the dealer and see if he finds something else wrong before replacing the struts. I've read in some threads about some suspension bushing replacements discussed in service bulletins, but I have never heard any clunking or bottoming sounds and never felt something that would indicate wear of suspension components.

scdroptop

iTrader: (1)

IMHO, I would try the "step care" approach...repair and replace smaller items first. Sometimes alignment, tires being out-of-round, PSI, road force balance/rotate tires, can fix a lot of these issues and be much less expensive fixes.

Obviously if you can get a bushing replacement TSB under warranty still, that would be my second approach. If that didn't fly (they didn't approve) and you've tried everything else, then I would do the struts.

Steering wheel wobbling/vibrations can be a LOT of things. Given your mileage and strut test, replacing struts wouldn't be a BAD idea. If you can afford it as routine maintenance, but wouldn't it be great if you could save that money by just rotating tires or doing a realignment instead to fix the problem? If you have stock RFT's perhaps you just have general tire vibrations? What's your tread like and do you have any cupping or irregular wear? Non RFT's would probably be less than replacing struts.

That would be great if you could start small and find a inexpensive "easy" fix, wouldn't it?

And then with the money you saved you could do a mod...like 06+ tails or Vais iPod or intake or replace the plugs for better performance? (of course if you haven't done any of this yet). Just my two cents. Keep us posted

Bon

I'm with scdroptop: lowest cost approach first. Do you feel this vibration in the steering wheel or in your butt? One suggests the front end the other suggests the back end. Any shop that does alignments can easily check out the wear on your steering components such as tie rods, bushings, ball joints and struts as well as your alignment. I'd expect them to easily ID the problem at little to no cost if you do the replacement work there.

velocity12

Remember, we have independant double wishbone suspension front and back - not struts. Very expensive to fix as I found out recently.

Bon

Quite right, I stand corrected.

scdroptop

iTrader: (1)

Poqman-I would definitely try the step car approach. Let us know about your tires, alignment, tread, how many miles on tires, etc etc. That might help. I would start there. Does your car sit a bunch? You may have dead spots. I remembered when you got the verde kaos wheels. Are they new tires? Were they road force balanced? Did you buy the hub centric rings to make them fit your car? Just some ?'s I would have.

Poqman

scdroptop-It's great to talk to someone who has driven these cars for awhile. This is my first and it's different from any other car I've owned. The car is a daily drive with new Bridgestone Potenza A60's on new Verde Kaos rims. I had immediate problems with the new rims. The installer used 73x60.1 hubcentric rings on the front and none on the rear. The Verde's are 74 OD. Experienced problems right out of the shop. To correct, they ordered 73.8x60.1 rings and installed on all four rims and rebalanced. This seemed to fix the balance problem, however they were not force balanced. I seem to be able to go up to 80 mph on asphalt roads with no vibration at all. It's the concrete roads that set off the resonance.
If not struts, what I'm seeing must be shocks. Have you ever replaced them or did you go directly with Tein coilovers?