Dodgy suspension

[gurninman]

SO - I have this old shed of a Honda Civic (1998 vintage, 1.4i)

The handling is absolutely awful - there's an awful lot of body roll, and it seems as if there is no damping whatsoever.

I've replaced the rear shocks, and it felt a little better.The rear tyres seem to wear out in 3-4000 miles, wearing heavily on the inside couple of inches of the tread, and the rear wheels look as if they have a load of negative camber to them.

At speeds above 70ish, the steering gets extremely vague, and a twitch of the steering wheel to the left will give it a nice little left jink, followed by a bounce to the right (I'm assuming because there's fuck-all damping)

Now.... anyone out there who knows about these things.... ? if the rear wheels have some negative camber to them (and they're not adjustable), would it likely be sloppy suspension bushes ?

I'm struggling to know what to do with this - don't want to go spending shit loads of money on the pikey old thing, but equally I couldn't in all conscience sell it as it is because it is, frankly, dangerous.

Of course, I could just keep driving it around Slough and wait for the day when it gets twatted by some prcik running a red light...

Edited for being a nob-end

[Jaybewan]

Being that type of vintage civic my first thought was "did a previous owner cut down the springs to lower the suspension?", though in my limited experience you could be right about the rear bushes.

I'm sure someone will be along soon to tell you exactly what it is though.

[gurninman]

Being that type of vintage civic my first thought was "did a previous owner cut down the springs to lower the suspension?", though in my limited experience you could be right about the rear bushes.

I'm sure someone will be along soon to tell you exactly what it is though.

Definitely not lowered - it's as standard as they come.

Boring and slow, bought just top pick the kids up alternate weekends and drive to work in the snow when it comes

[kostritzer]

Definitely not lowered - it's as standard as they come.

Boring and slow, bought just top pick the kids up alternate weekends and drive to work in the snow when it comes

Rear trailing arm bushings(the big ones) are the main ones that wear out on that generation civic. I'd check there first.

[gurninman]

Rear trailing arm bushings(the big ones) are the main ones that wear out on that generation civic. I'd check there first.

Cool, I'll have a gander at that .

Front shocks can be had fairly cheaply, but when I saw the prices of a rear bush kit, I nearly had a heart attack !

I'll get hold of some shocks, and do the trailing arm bushes - see what it's like after that.

[zx6rrob]

The man speaks the truth about the rear trailing arm bushes.

Send me a pm if you want to know the easy way to change them.