Installshield 2
Gothenburg Superiority
I'm having a very strange, yet very specific suspension issue on my 2002 protege 5. Sorry for the essay, but trying to give as much info as possible to help narrow this down.
a little history: This has never been a 'winter' car, the open diff was a joke even with good winter tires...so i drove as little as possible in the winters. In 2005, a friend ended up stranded 20 miles from our apartment in college. I picked him up, and 'luckily' we got this freak snow squall in early october that put down about 3" of snow in less than an hour (was like a very quick blizzard haha)...the car still had summer tires, and literally 1 block from my apartment, a car behind me lost control and bumped me into a curb...the driver's side front end clipped the curb at roughly 10 mph...
the car was still driveable, but totally messed up the wheel and alignment, and made an obvious amount of noise. the steering system stills seemed ok. It didn't destroy the rack, cause fluid leaks, or anything like that. The next day I had the car towed to a trusted shop, and everything was fixed. Got it back...no noticeable problems of any kind for nearly 80,000 more miles.
about 6 years later...my struts finally died, which i replaced with some cheaper KYB's from tire rack (was tight on cash at the time)...of which i've never been thrilled with, but they were much better than the blown factory struts. I did a straight up replacement of only the struts. reused the strut mounts, endlinks, etc. I destroyed two strut bolts smashing them with a hammer, and found as close of a replacement as i could at a local Napa.
After the replacment, it had been a while since i was used to the car with a properly working suspension (had gone a while with the ridiculous front end bounce from blown struts)...it stayed straight, no noises, no weird tire wear, and everything seemed fine...accept one specific thing.
In a right hand bend...on and off throttle the car would noticeably 'lunge'. Almost like the tire/wheel would start to roll over a little mid turn, and it would change the turning angle a few degrees. its easy to catch and be ready for, and only does it on pretty fast bends (no low speed around town problems)...and ONLY when turning to the right. No noticeable problem of any kind when turning to the left. it had been doing this for a year or so...and never got worse in anyway. I've also regularly rotated wheels/tires...remains the same with any wheel at that location.
so i finally started digging around in there recently, (as this was also the side hit in the curb impact)...found a destroyed ball joint boot...figured that was my problem, replaced the lower control arm and ball joint monday night. With the car up in the air, i can't get any wiggles of any kind with my own leverage. The wheel bearing, albeit never having been replaced, makes absolutely no wobble or slop...and no noise when i'm rotating it by hand (also seems fine when driving). dropped the car, went for a drive...the problem is still there...but a little less noticeably, i have to sort of 'make' it happen if that makes sense...but its definitely still there.
could a strut mount do only this? I've had bad strut mounts before...clunking and popping on pretty much any bump. I have absolutely no noise of any kind, other than a very faint clicking i notice when pulling into my driveway...i can only hear it when the windows are down, and i've noticed this since the car was brand new...CV joints all seem in decent shape, boots are fine too...and i can't hear the clicking at higher speeds (but that may just be other road noise damping it out).
I just bought replacement factory strut bolts from the dealership, to replace the two napa bolts i put in there last time (they were a little smaller in diameter for the knuckle holes, but very close)...and i put one factory and one napa bolt on each side to keep it even...i figure if it was those bolts, it would do this on both sides equally?...yet never once has it done it on a left hand turn.
what else? could a tie rod do this, even without any problems in other driving conditions? These cars have inner and outer tie rod ends, and the inner's are surrounded by a boot so i can't easily see their condition. The outers seem fine on both sides, no slop, the joint boot is still in tact...I'm kind of lost haha. Could a sway-bar end-link going bad cause this? I know they are tricky, i was very patient when uninstalling and re-installing them. Just seems weird that if it is a link, why doesn't it make any noise like its slipping or bending on the bar or strut?
again, sorry for the long read...but i think all that was needed to illustrate whats already been replaced, and how specific this problem is.
a little history: This has never been a 'winter' car, the open diff was a joke even with good winter tires...so i drove as little as possible in the winters. In 2005, a friend ended up stranded 20 miles from our apartment in college. I picked him up, and 'luckily' we got this freak snow squall in early october that put down about 3" of snow in less than an hour (was like a very quick blizzard haha)...the car still had summer tires, and literally 1 block from my apartment, a car behind me lost control and bumped me into a curb...the driver's side front end clipped the curb at roughly 10 mph...
the car was still driveable, but totally messed up the wheel and alignment, and made an obvious amount of noise. the steering system stills seemed ok. It didn't destroy the rack, cause fluid leaks, or anything like that. The next day I had the car towed to a trusted shop, and everything was fixed. Got it back...no noticeable problems of any kind for nearly 80,000 more miles.
about 6 years later...my struts finally died, which i replaced with some cheaper KYB's from tire rack (was tight on cash at the time)...of which i've never been thrilled with, but they were much better than the blown factory struts. I did a straight up replacement of only the struts. reused the strut mounts, endlinks, etc. I destroyed two strut bolts smashing them with a hammer, and found as close of a replacement as i could at a local Napa.
After the replacment, it had been a while since i was used to the car with a properly working suspension (had gone a while with the ridiculous front end bounce from blown struts)...it stayed straight, no noises, no weird tire wear, and everything seemed fine...accept one specific thing.
In a right hand bend...on and off throttle the car would noticeably 'lunge'. Almost like the tire/wheel would start to roll over a little mid turn, and it would change the turning angle a few degrees. its easy to catch and be ready for, and only does it on pretty fast bends (no low speed around town problems)...and ONLY when turning to the right. No noticeable problem of any kind when turning to the left. it had been doing this for a year or so...and never got worse in anyway. I've also regularly rotated wheels/tires...remains the same with any wheel at that location.
so i finally started digging around in there recently, (as this was also the side hit in the curb impact)...found a destroyed ball joint boot...figured that was my problem, replaced the lower control arm and ball joint monday night. With the car up in the air, i can't get any wiggles of any kind with my own leverage. The wheel bearing, albeit never having been replaced, makes absolutely no wobble or slop...and no noise when i'm rotating it by hand (also seems fine when driving). dropped the car, went for a drive...the problem is still there...but a little less noticeably, i have to sort of 'make' it happen if that makes sense...but its definitely still there.
could a strut mount do only this? I've had bad strut mounts before...clunking and popping on pretty much any bump. I have absolutely no noise of any kind, other than a very faint clicking i notice when pulling into my driveway...i can only hear it when the windows are down, and i've noticed this since the car was brand new...CV joints all seem in decent shape, boots are fine too...and i can't hear the clicking at higher speeds (but that may just be other road noise damping it out).
I just bought replacement factory strut bolts from the dealership, to replace the two napa bolts i put in there last time (they were a little smaller in diameter for the knuckle holes, but very close)...and i put one factory and one napa bolt on each side to keep it even...i figure if it was those bolts, it would do this on both sides equally?...yet never once has it done it on a left hand turn.
what else? could a tie rod do this, even without any problems in other driving conditions? These cars have inner and outer tie rod ends, and the inner's are surrounded by a boot so i can't easily see their condition. The outers seem fine on both sides, no slop, the joint boot is still in tact...I'm kind of lost haha. Could a sway-bar end-link going bad cause this? I know they are tricky, i was very patient when uninstalling and re-installing them. Just seems weird that if it is a link, why doesn't it make any noise like its slipping or bending on the bar or strut?
again, sorry for the long read...but i think all that was needed to illustrate whats already been replaced, and how specific this problem is.
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