Front suspension feels sloppy- what bushings to change at 120k miles?
 

Hello fit experts out there,

my 13 fit sport has about 120k miles and the front suspension just feels loose and rattling over speed bumps and bad roads.

im thinking it’s time to change some bushings but after looking at a diagram of how many there are, I’m not sure which are the ones to do.

I have the following mods, all recently done and nothing has helped so far:

-Koni shocks
-Moog sway bar links
-KYB strut mounts
-Spoon Rigid Collars:
(https://www.vividracing.com/checkout...rder_id=283984)

any ideas??

thanks!

Ball joints? Tie rods? Could even be bearings I suppose. Get the wheels off the ground and start shaking things around see what moves.

I just ordered a pair of Sway Bar Stabilizer links as my car developed a clunky sound going over small bumps.

yeah we tried that with car up on rack and nothing seemed loose...

thanks for input guys but I did those and that wasn’t it either. 🤔 hmmmm....

are any of the bushings wear items at that mileage to the best of your knowledge??

You posted that last July. Did anything major happen in the last 8 months that could have affected this? Based on your previous thread I’m wondering if you don’t have something major wrong like a busted sway bar or shock tower is cracked or something. Or that maybe there is something wrong with the shocks themselves.

all of those things helped very minorly , I think i jumped the gun with wishful thinking. After driving it more since then it still has same problem. Nice catch though! Ha

The clunky sounds that were coming from the stabilizer links were quite evident on my car, while on the lift you could move the link and feel the loosnes and hear metal on metal sound. Fit suspension is not that complex, shocks, ball joints and controll arm bushings.

Gotcha. Tough to diagnose this one over the Internet. I would take it to a tire/suspension place and have it professionally diagnosed. Your post history seems to indicate that it happened immediately after replacing your old Koni’s with new ones. Either your new Koni’s are bad, someone didn’t reinstall something properly in the strut stack, or you have something seriously wrong with your suspensions mount points. I doubt any bushing(s) Just coincidentally happened to fail at the same time you did the replacement. And it seems like you’ve spent a decent amount of time and money throwing parts at this thing with no luck.

We can't find any loose or worn bushings, chalking it up to the Koni STR.T struts and Eibach spring set up. These are not tight fitting coilovers so the spring just kind of rattles around in there they were saying, which sounds kind of wonky if you ask me as there is still load being pressed down on them.
Opinions?

:eek3:

There is definitely something wrong here. I have the exact same setup as you with stock springs (minus the spoon collars). I can assure you, the spring should not just "rattle around in the there". This sounds very unsafe. Are you sure you have a.) the correct Koni shocks b.) the correct Eibach springs? I'm kind of leaning toward point a because as mentioned previously, this all started to happen after you replaced the old Koni's with new ones according to your post history.

Still ongoing I assume?
I'd like some pics of your set up if you get the chance!! I'm curious about this nonsense in regards to springs fitting loose.
I know stock springs have little rubber booties on the bottoms of em to sit in their respective dishes on the struts. lacking those could maybe cause some weirdness.

Next thing. you had mounts replaced?
I'd be super leery of that! in my go replacing struts on this thing, they were sensitive. Gotta measure length of the stud coming outta the strut on top.. Any goop on the mounts could cause slipping which makes a funky knock sound. improper measurement n torque there made noise too. it was pretty tedious getting the springs on the struts properly. :nod:
Safe to assume you've also had it aligned.. Those springs should have enough tension on em to take a face off... HEY! maybe they didnt preload suspension before torquing? that'd leave the bushings of the control arms to deal with shock absorption. I wouldnt think theyre tough enough to fill that roll n float the springs.. but thats worth a thought. I'd prolly break the suspension loose. one thing at a time. and re-torque it all while pre-loaded with vehicle weight.

Turns out it was the lower control arm bushings, which we replaced with the arms. Used a different shop and it really tightened it all up, wish I had used them from the beginning of this whole adventure. Anyways, thanks for all of your input!