My wife has recently leased a '09 Civic EX Coupe and I noticed it rides stiffer than my '07 EX Coupe. I looked up the part numbers between '07 & '09 on the rear springs and struts and they are different. Does anyone know if Honda changed the spring rates and revised the valving in the struts for '09? The front part numbers are the same for the '06,'07,'08, and '09 years.

 

Hmm interesting. I don't recall any of the marketing information saying anything about revised suspension, but I guess we'll see!

 

I would have least thought Honda would have something in their 2009 Civic Coupe brochure stating new for '09 an upgraded rear suspension. I have noticed that my '07 rear suspension does bottom out easy, it feels as though it's hitting the bump stops. I figured I'd ask here first, cause if you ask anyone at a dealer they are clueless.

 

it's probably just that the '07 suspension is already worn while the '09 is new.

 

I've ordered a set of '07 Si factory rear springs (52441-SVB-A01) for my '07 EX to see if it will stiffen up the rear from bottoming out over dips in the road. The car only has 15K on it so it's not worn out. I took it to the dealer and they said they could not duplicate and there are no T.S.B.'s on this issue. Honda must have had complaints about this for them to change parts for '09. The '09 EX uses the same rear shock (52610-SVB-A04) as the Si, but uses a different spring p/n (52441-SNA-A02) than the Si.

 

I installed the new Si springs and problem solved. No more bottoming out over dips in the road and it stiffened it up too.

 

Did the kit come with hardware to address the different spring seat on your car?

 

The spring seats are the same, just a formed piece of rubber top & bottom. I just changed the springs and kept the stock shocks. For $16 ea. for the springs I figured if it didn't solve the problem I wasn't out a whole hell of a lot of money.