This is my first post, so nice to meet everyone. I had a question regarding rear suspension theory. My car is dogtailing alot and I know that it is a result of faulty control arms. I am not THAT knowledgeable with cars (not as much as most of you at least ) and especially not with suspension theory. I was wondering if anyone knows what components of the rear control arms i need to replace.....the whole assembly costs too much. Also, does anyone have any recommendations for the replacements as far as brand and such goes?

Thanks
Nick

 

Not enough information. What car, what year? Why are you convinced that it's 'faulty control arms'?

Actually it might not even matter. We probably can't really answer you anyway. I'm betting something's bent, & you have to figure out exactly what. Try closely inspecting each part, compared against the opposide side. Look for wrinkles in the metal, or areas where the paint is cracking. Rubber bushings that are pulled or distorted?

If you're lucky you can find one single part that's bent, just replace that part. If you're not lucky, the bent part might be a hard mounting point on the chassis itself...

Then get an alignment. Come to think of it, it's even possible that an alignment is all you really need...

 

The car is a 95 civic ex. I took it into brakecheck and i do know for sure that the bushings are bad. I will check to make sure that there isn't something else wrong. Would just bad bushings cause that to happen?

 

The bushings alone, probably no. Most likely the rear toe alignment is off.

 

what is dogtailing?
-PHiZ

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PHiZ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">what is dogtailing?
-PHiZ</TD></TR></TABLE>Ever see a '65 chevy with the rear spring shackles installed wrong? The rear tires track a few inches over from the front, so it sorta drives diagonally down the road...

Could be he's got positive toe on one rear wheel & negative toe on the other. My comment about bushings was about looking for bushings that looked like they were being pulled over one way or the other. That would be a clue that something is bent or badly misaligned.

 

faulty bushings are not expensive to fix. im assuming the bushings in your control arm are bad, its usually the center bushing holding the strut to go. lets just say all 3 bushings are bad. a bushing is about 15 dollars from the dealer each. so 90 for parts, 10 each to press them in and out 60 = 150 total for new bushings. as for your car feeling swervy or like its about to lose control, an alignment should take care of that problem.

like jimblake said, its the toe that is misadjusted, one wheel being at 0.30 perhaps and the other at -0.12 so the tires are pointing | / in the rear so at higher speeds it feels like the car wants to pull to the right and it doesnt feel steady.

make sure its only your bushings and nothing is actually bent, replace them, and then take it to an alignment shop and have a look at the numbers.
by looking at the numbers and seeing how well they can be adjusted you can usually tell if something is even slightly bent or not.

 

Thanks guys,
Hopefully I will be able to get that **** done today. I appreciate it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JimBlake &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Ever see a '65 chevy with the rear spring shackles installed wrong?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Um, no.

-PHiZ