I had a suspension noise and a brain dead suspension "specialist" misdiagnosed a worn inner CV joint on my '99 Crv Mt, replaced just the joint with an aftermarket inner CV, the vehicle then had a vibration it never had previously, I inspected the old inner CV which clearly was still perfect. I went back and obliged the fool to refit my old inner CV and do a refund which they did. Problem is now I still have a vibration just less so.

A few days later I had the vehicle on a hoist so I took a look at the axle again, then I noticed ttle rubber donut thing/Axle Vibration Damper was loose, they obviously damaged it during the installation and that's causing the vibration.

When I got home I jacked up the vehicle and cut the damper off, not the easiest job, inside the rubber there is a solid ring of steel a good 1/4" thick. Unfortunately even with the damper removed there is still a vibration.

Can these dampers be purchased on their own from Honda and how necessary are they?

Another aspect, how important is it to match the CV bearings to the original bucket slot they were running in?

The Honda service manual says before disassembly of a CV joint each of the 3 bearings should be marked so they can be refitted into the same bucket slot when being assembled again. My refitted inner CV had the bearings refitted into the buckets randomly, apparently doing this can also potentially cause vibrations on some CV's.