1991 Honda Accord Strutts

It's nice to know you understand the importance of ride height and vehicle weight, but in this case my sources show the same strut part number for both years, with no stipulations for other factors. It's actually the springs that affect ride height and are affected by vehicle weight, but the only differences I found had to do with manual transmission cars in two European countries. I use the Rock Auto web site a lot for reference. You might try looking up your cars, then look at the spring choices.

Look at your old springs too. Honda had plenty of trouble with them breaking, then the sharp end of one part would tear up the inner sidewall of that tire. There's a painted coating on the spring. Once that coating cracks off, water gets under it and rusts the spring very quickly. If you find that, replace them.

I can get the last ounce of life out of any part on my vehicles, but I'm not a fan of used struts. New ones are so inexpensive that it doesn't pay to go through twice as much work by taking one apart. In this case, you have to raise the protective cover, then look on the top of the strut body where the shaft comes out and see if there's any oil there. If there is, the strut won't dampen the normal bouncing motions. Even if the top is dry, a strut can lose its ability to dampen bouncing. This can be aggravated by using a lighter coil spring too. A heavier car will overload a lighter spring and it will fail to support the weight of the car properly. The strut doesn't support any weight at all, but if the spring doesn't do that, the car will bounce more than the strut can control.

I remember the struts are the same part number for both of your cars, but I didn't look up the springs. The problem is all you can go by is part numbers, applications, and options on the car. They don't tell you how much weight the spring is supposed to support.

All of this assumes, on my part, that you transferred the struts with the springs as two complete assemblies. If that's right, you may have the wrong springs, and you still could have worn struts. If you disassembled the struts and kept the original springs with the car, that isn't an issue.

Also remember that changing struts requires the car be aligned. Even if your model doesn't have "camber" adjustments, (Ford is famous for leaving this critical adjustment off their front-wheel-drive cars), changing any suspension parts can change the alignment. Ride height comes into play too, so if the springs are a little weak and the car sits at a different ride height as before, the alignment will be affected. Alignment doesn't affect or cause excessive bouncing, but incorrect "toe" can cause the handling to feel unstable, and when the two front tires are steering in different directions, the car will follow the tire with the most weight on it. Normally that's the right one because roads lean to the right so rain will run off. When the left tire hits a bump, the car will momentarily follow that one. That results in the need to constantly correct the steering. The car can wobble from side to side which can feel like bouncing.