Been having some problems with my 2007 EX Civic Coupe... for a decent amount of time I've been hearing a sort of humming noise while driving and it seemed to be from the rear driver side. Previously that happened on the rear passenger, and it ended up being a wheel bearing (this was at about 44,000 miles, which seemed early to my husband, but whatever). Anyhow, we were thinking a wheel bearing again, but when we got our tires rotated last week, the noise moved from the back to the front.

So we brought the car back to the tire place and had them check out the tires. Were told that there was uneven wear on the one now in the front, and recommended an alignment.

Took the car in for an alignment yesterday, and the guy said that he could fix everything but the rear passenger camber, which is at -2.53, according to the printout he gave me. It looks like the rear driver side is iffy too, at -1.82, but not as extreme as the other. Anyway, the tech said I needed to put a camber kit on it in order to fix.

The weird thing to me is that I have not lowered my car or modified it in any way. The only thing not stock are the tires, but they are the same specs as stock. No accidents either.

Do I really need a camber kit? Could it be something else? I don't want to wreck the rest of my tires...

 

i believe theres a recall for base model civics for that camber problem... call or take it to a Honda dealership and see what they say... goodluck...

 

It wasn't a recall, there was a TSB for it.

 

That sounds helpful. Is this something I should print and bring with me? Or something that all Honda dealers should have on file?

 

Doesn't hurt to print it out, but TSBs are only covered under warranty. After that you're paying out of your own pocket.

Here is the PDF of the TSB:

http://www.mediafire.com/?eg78zv6yn3h75oc

 

Thanks for the suggestions. Sucks that I'm out of warranty though.

 

You should still try to fight for it! If they noticed this was a problem from an improper part then I shouldn't be at fault for them screwing up...

They might go 50-50 with you... just some tips and trick to work around with the stealership!

 

yea, thats what i meant...lol... thanks for the correction...

 

If you have to pay for the recall dont do it, its just a longer upper control arm, you could get a cheap ingalls camber kit and solve all your problems by giving yourself rear camber adjustable.

Which even in the new arms that are longer you still can not do.

 

Take the front two trailing arm bolts loose and you can adjust some camber there. Push the assembly towards the car and this will help bring it closer to spec.

Also with the car on the ground loosen the 14mm both underneath the trunk floor cover. Then rock the car and retighten. This will help release any pressure on bushing if a repair was made or the suspension was incorrectly mounted @ the factory.

These are same repair methods used @ factory due to no RR camber adjustment available on the civic.

 

Go to your dealer and see if they can "good will" it, i mean it's a KNOWN issue with the car. We usually do good will stuff like this if there's enough pressure from the customer, or the service advisor is in a good mood lol

 

Planning to go to the dealer tomorrow... my husband is typically the car repair guy, though he's grown up on Fords and we currently don't have any sort of garage or place to do our own stuff. I'm hoping that the control arms are the actual problem, it makes the most sense. I'm taking a long road trip in about two weeks and would really like to have this fixed before then.

whitejm- seems like something my alignment guy could have tried too, but didn't. Maybe they just don't know enough about civics or something. *shrugs*

 

yeah... usually if you go to a dealer and let them know you've 'been on the forums' and know its a 'common problem' they won't usually goodwill your repair. usually goodwill repairs are reserved for customers who come into the DEALERship for scheduled maintenance/wear and tear repairs, spend money and are loyal customers. if you go to Joe's Garage, specializing in Japanese Imports, for your scheduled maintenance, brakes, etc, there's a good chance the Honda dealer will NOT goodwill anything for you.

 

Well, I might be in luck then, since I've mostly gone to the dealership.

 

Well, for sure I needed the new rear upper control arms. They didn't have the parts Friday, so hopefully it'll be fixed by Monday. Got them to goodwill the parts, but I still have to pay labor and the new alignment. Hoping that'll fix the problem and it will be ready to roll for a big road trip next week.

 

I have the same exact problem with my 2007 Civic EX. Got all my tires changed last year after 40k and started getting that humming sound after 6 months or so. Took it to the alignment shop last week and was told that I have a -ve camber of 2.6 in my rear passenger and 1.3 in rear driver wheels and I would need Camber kit to fix it. I checked around and camber kits are not at all inexpensive!

I haven't spoken to the honda dealer yet, planning to do it next.

how much did they charge you? is it fixed now?

Thanks,
Sam

 

Thanks for reminding me, I meant to update with how everything turned out. It ended up being a bit of a hassle overall, but part of that was the dealer's fault.

Anyhow- I dropped the car off and had them look at the control arms. They were determined to be the wrong kind (they either had the "C" stamped onto them or it didn't, I forget which is the bad version), so it stayed there until they could get the parts in. After proving with paperwork that I'm a loyal Honda customer, they got Honda to comp the parts, but I still had to pay for labor and another alignment. Car was all set, went to pick it up and I was still not super happy with the numbers. The camber on the rear passenger went from -2.4 down to only a -2.1, while the other side changed dramatically. I could actually still see that the wheel tilted out on the bottom. The lady in charge of working with me claimed that the numbers met their requirements, so I just took it home.

The next day I called the Service Manager and told him everything, including that I wasn't sure they had fixed it properly. He said that he would talk to the tech lady and they would let me know when I could bring it back in to have it checked over again. Three days later I still had not heard anything, so I called him back. He apologized and said he had been told it had been taken care of already, and got me in the next morning. (Thank goodness too, I was leaving a couple days after for a huge roadtrip across the country) Eventually I get the call saying that they were finished with my car. It turns out that whoever did the alignment did it to the wrong specs. So finally, it's better. The camber is now in the -1.something range (still not as good as it could be, IMO) and I can't see the wheel tilting anymore. It seems to drive fine now as well, though the tire that had been in that spot previously makes a good bit of noise due to its uneven wear. I really hope that this is the end of these problems for me.

Good luck getting your car fixed. If you have lots of records of service at a Honda dealer, definitely bring it with you and ask for them to consider Good Willing service and/or parts.