1985-1998 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
... as it is generally these that wear out and make a car feel "tired". Most of them are cheap. The best improvement will be made by replacing the rear bushes on the front lower control arms. These wear out and cause vagueness, torque steer and inability to hold wheel alignment. I did this with OEM rubber bushes on my '96 Aero (152K miles) and noticed a world of difference. I'll be fitting polyurethane ones from SuperFlex shortly.
Another thing that made a difference was steering rack bushes. I had someone move the steering from side to side while I watched the rack. It moved a total of 1/4". New (SuperFlex) polyurethane bushes fixed this, but I'm sure OEM ones would have helped too. Just tightening the mounting bolts helped for a while.
The above should sharpen your steering.
I fitted poly anti-roll bar bushes on the rear. This had an amazing effect on the handling for less than £10 from SuperFlex. Most of the understeer seems to have gone. If you do this, be careful the first time you take it out as it really does change the handling drastically and you need to be ready for it. It's great, but different.
I like the handling so much like this that I think I'll just replace the front anti-roll bar bushes with new OEM rubber ones. I have poly bushes for it, but think they'll make the car understeer again.
Shocks on the 9000 generally seem to last well. Try the "bounce test" if you suspect a problem - push down hard on the corner, let go and watch what happens. If it comes back up and stops without bouncing, the shocks are probably OK. If it bounces up and down, it's time to replace them.
The springs and anti-roll bars are probably fine if the car sits level. They're also much more expensive than bushes, so I'd try the bushes first.
I got my bushes from SuperFlex here in the UK. Sully goht them to send bushes to the 'States and seems to have been really happy with their service. Contact them on: +44 1749 678152
Their web site is below
posted by 161.71.12...
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