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More civic issues!

roguerower

roguerower

Diamond Member
Took my civic in for a state inspection this morning and it failed due to leaking struts. They (Pep Boys) wanted $950 to fix them. Went on Rock Auto and I can get 4 new assembled struts for $425 minus a $120 mail in rebate.

My only concern is getting under the car. I watched a video where the removal and reinstall looked to be pretty straight forward, however they had the car on a stand and were able to get underneath it. I will not be so fortunate.

This brings the total cost of repairing this car up to about $600. Should I be afraid that this is the beginning of the end and I should trade it in while I can?
 
A Civic's suspension installation is fairly straight forward. If you have 160K miles on the stock suspension like I read in your other post then the suspension doesn't owe you a thing. Keep the car and don't have a car payment = a wise decision in my book. When it becomes more expensive to fix the car than what it's worth in when I replace my vehicles.
 
Replacing the suspension was the first DIY i did on my civic and I had no problems (had a friend's help though). took the better part of a day. you'll need to get an alignment afterwards as well.
if you have 2 jack stands, you'll be fine. you don't ever really need to get far under the car to work on the suspension. basically everything is accessible once the wheel is off.
 
vshah said:
Replacing the suspension was the first DIY i did on my civic and I had no problems (had a friend's help though). took the better part of a day. you'll need to get an alignment afterwards as well.
if you have 2 jack stands, you'll be fine. you don't ever really need to get far under the car to work on the suspension. basically everything is accessible once the wheel is off.
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Yea, didn't seem to be a particularly difficult task, but looked like getting to the rear suspension would be a major pain in the ass. Excuse my ignorance, but why the need for an alignment?
 
What year is your civic? If has the double wishbone front suspension then you can probably get away without an alignment.

Basically, if you take apart the suspension there's enough play in it that it won't be exactly as it was once you put it back together. An $80 alignment is cheap insurance to avoid ruining a couple of tires.
 
NutBucket said:
What year is your civic? If has the double wishbone front suspension then you can probably get away without an alignment.

Basically, if you take apart the suspension there's enough play in it that it won't be exactly as it was once you put it back together. An $80 alignment is cheap insurance to avoid ruining a couple of tires.
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'01 EX Coupe.
 
Running into car problems is the only way I've learned anything about working on cars. Every issue is a new learning experience.
 
if you have to reuse old springs, be careful when handling those spring compressors

and all the tools you can rent from autozone i believe
 
brainhulk said:
if you have to reuse old springs, be careful when handling those spring compressors

and all the tools you can rent from autozone i believe
Click to expand...

I'm just going to buy the pre-fab'd struts. $425 at Rock Auto minus 10% coupon minus $120 mail in rebate comes out to $300 for all 4. Plus it'll give me an. Excuse to buy more tools.
 
Having bad struts after that many miles is not a car problem but a normal wear and tear replacement item so don't assume your car is ready for the scrap pile. My son has 170K on his 02 Civic EX coupe and it still runs like a top. As for the how-to.....you can find plenty of instructions by searching on some civic forums, youtube or from advance auto parts.
 
Pre-assembled is the way to go given the low cost and how much time it saves you. It should be a fairly easy job even on jack stands. Remember lifts are luxuries, not necessities 🙂
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm amazed at how well the car runs. 13 years and 178k miles and it's still on its original clutch and transmission and I'm just now starting to replace a bunch of small items. I've already looked up how to replace the struts and with these pre-fab'd units it's insanely easy. I understand that this is just normal wear and tear, but my concentration is that these first couple of items (calipers/rotors, struts) are the beginning of a long list of things that i'm going to have to fix.
 
Suspension is pretty easy on most cars. Plan it taking an entire day if you haven't done it before. See if you can find a video on removing the shock from the wheelwell. Its the most complicated part as its usually pretty tight in there and seeing what way to maneuver it can save loads of time.

I find by even 70k miles most cars struts are worn enough that there is a substantial benefit in replacing them. (They may go much further before actually failing)
 
roguerower said:
Don't get me wrong, I'm amazed at how well the car runs. 13 years and 178k miles and it's still on its original clutch and transmission and I'm just now starting to replace a bunch of small items. I've already looked up how to replace the struts and with these pre-fab'd units it's insanely easy. I understand that this is just normal wear and tear, but my concentration is that these first couple of items (calipers/rotors, struts) are the beginning of a long list of things that i'm going to have to fix.
Click to expand...

I understand what you are saying and you are probably right in that there will be other things needing replacing soon. I would think that your major concern/cost would be your timing belt (and water pump if you do the belt) which are coming due. Anything else, for the most part should be minor (plugs, wires, filters). If your car is still in good shape, and you really want to keep it, it might be worth your time and money to just have a dealer go over it and give you an estimate of what they think needs to be done. From there you can pick and choose what you think is necessary.
 
The problem in my eyes is that your car failed some stupid inspection because the struts are leaking. Apparently we have it easy here, you just don't have to worry about such things. Could fix something like that when you felt like it, or never at all.

That being said, the mileage is totally normal if not beyond what they normally last.
 
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