Clunky Suspension

87 CRX si, 187,000 miles. I have driven on the car for 80k of the miles and have replaced the struts with tokico adj. I lowered trosion bars first, this was a mistake and returned them to factory setting. I noticed about 40k miles after it feels clunky in the steering wheel. The ball joints are tight, could strut bearings fix this problem? Has anyone replaced these and has it fixed similar symptoms. In addition the rear alignment seems to be off and tread wear indicates a toe - in problem. Could the orig. springs be at fault? Any help whould be greatly apprec.

For the rear, something must be bent out of alignment. Had this car been rear ended? The only things that would cause uneven tire wear in the rear would be bent swing arms, bent axle, or bad wheel bearings.

For the front, I've never needed to replace the bearings so I can't tell you if this would help.

My car had an odd clunk/drift in the steering when I first got it. It turned out that the 4 bolts holding the steering rack in place were loose.

There shouldn't be any problems with lowering the front so long as you don't go too low and you get a front end alingnment afterwards. When you lower the front end you will end up with massive toe out.

Thanks for the help lxndr. The carfax came back clean, but that just means that the previous owners could have paid cash to fix it and did not report. I know there has been paint work done because it is a texas car and the pass. door and fender are still bright red while the rear and rest of the car is faded and has wheel burns on the edge of the body lines. For the price of the strut bearings I think I'm just going to replace them and see if it helps. I have already replaced one rear wheel bearing because of a bad seal, but it is too early to see if it was the problem with my tire wear. The other bearing I have taken out and repacked, it is still in good shape. The only reason I mentioned the springs was because the rear sags as the springs get old and I know the panhard bar is supposed to keep the wheels aligned at a specific ride height. Is there anything else that might cause a tire to be choppy diagonally accross the tread? Has anyone used urathane bushings? Worth the effort?

I've got Energy Suspension bushings in my CRX. The rear bushings are a PITA to install but the front is pretty easy. I ended up pulling out the whole rear axle so I could torch the old rubber bushings out.

Sooooo worth the effort!