2005 Honda Civic Struts replaced now noise

Tiny
JIMMYII17
  • MEMBER
  • 2005 HONDA CIVIC
  • 4 CYL
  • FWD
  • MANUAL
  • 92,760 MILES
I just replaced the four struts on my 2005 Civic EX SE Coupe with Gabrial Ultras. As soon as I drove it to the shop to have it aligned I noticed a thumping sound coming from the front passanger side. I also noticed the steering felt loose and sloopy, especially at speed on the highway. I had the shop double check all the bolts to make sure they were torqued correctly and then give it the alignment. I picked up the car and the thumping is still there plus when you pull out of a driveway so that the passenger side takes the dip first, it sounds like it’s bottoming out, this also happens over speed bumps or larger potholes. The steering is also very unnerving at highway speeds, it feels loose and any bump seems to make the steering wheel turn. I took it to the shop and they told me it could be a bad strut, I had them replace that strut and it still does it. Then they told me it could be the stabilizer end link, it was replaced and it still does it. I’ve had four shops look at this and tell me they can find no reason why it would be doing this and no one can fix the problem. Can You help?
Friday, August 13th, 2010 AT 11:17 AM

3 Replies

Tiny
KHLOW2008
  • MECHANIC
  • 41,814 POSTS
Hi jimmyii17,

Without the physical vehicle, it is not going to be easy. When steering wheels pulls over minot potholes or humps, check the steering freeplay adjustment, lower arm ball joints and steering linkages. Is the tire oem specifications?

Only bad struts would cause bottoming, did you check if the other strut could be too stiff due to faults?

Were the control arms checked for wear on bushes?
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Friday, August 13th, 2010 AT 5:24 PM
Tiny
JIMMYII17
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  • 2 POSTS
The other shops to my knowledge have not checked ball joints or any other pivot point. They have only checked the struts and strut mounts.

The tires are OEM. This is my commuter car not a racer.

The last shop that checked it said that the control arm bushings looked very good.

Thanks for the reply
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Monday, August 16th, 2010 AT 2:49 PM
Tiny
KHLOW2008
  • MECHANIC
  • 41,814 POSTS
If the tires are wider than oem specs, the same would occur.

I still believe it could be the ball joints and steering free play adjustment.
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Monday, August 16th, 2010 AT 3:03 PM

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