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Old car rear struts replace or not

pete6032

pete6032

Diamond Member
I have a 2002 Civic and live in Chicago, which is basically like driving over the surface of the moon with so many potholes. Car has 140k miles on it. Runs like a champ, just did timing belt, water pump, etc. new tires, replaced ball joint, control arm, tie rod, etc in the front. I am trying to get 5 more years out of it, which would be about 10,000 miles total (2,000 miles/year). Replaced the front struts several year ago with Tokico struts. Have not done the rear struts. My question is should I replace them or not? The front suspension seems much more important than the rear suspension since the car is front wheel drive and the rear wheels are basically along for the ride. In all likelihood the rear struts are shot after 140k miles. Not replacing them I understand the ride in the rear is a little bumpier, but do I run a risk of doing any significant damage to the vehicle by staying with these old struts? Note the struts are not sagging or broken or anything, I'm just asking if it's worth doing.
 
pete6032 said:
I have a 2002 Civic and live in Chicago, which is basically like driving over the surface of the moon with so many potholes. Car has 140k miles on it. Runs like a champ, just did timing belt, water pump, etc. new tires, replaced ball joint, control arm, tie rod, etc in the front. I am trying to get 5 more years out of it, which would be about 10,000 miles total (2,000 miles/year). Replaced the front struts several year ago with Tokico struts. Have not done the rear struts. My question is should I replace them or not? The front suspension seems much more important than the rear suspension since the car is front wheel drive and the rear wheels are basically along for the ride. In all likelihood the rear struts are shot after 140k miles. Not replacing them I understand the ride in the rear is a little bumpier, but do I run a risk of doing any significant damage to the vehicle by staying with these old struts? Note the struts are not sagging or broken or anything, I'm just asking if it's worth doing.
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Only once have I had suspension parts worn so badly that they become hazardous. Other times, particularly with shocks and struts, I just concluded that it was "about time" and that I wanted a smoother ride.

Think of your old car as a problem of stocks and flows. You put money into the car, and the parts depreciate and deteriorate over time. Over the span of time you have the car, you spend so much on insurance and so much on parts and labor. There is an annual average maintenance cost.

I think that repair shops will charge you about $80 per shock or strut for some brands and models, which you might be able to get directly from an online reseller for about $40 or $45 per unit. You can make an arrangement with the repair shop to supply the parts, and pay them to install the struts. Or -- you can install them yourself.

Extrapolating from my own recent experience renewing my 95 Trooper's suspension, paying the repair-shop markup and labor for a single pair of struts/shocks could cost maybe $300+.

Do you want "a better ride"? Do you worry that riding with the old struts is eventually going to shake your old car to pieces?
 
Just push down on the bumper/trunk area of the car. If the car bounces up and down a few times then the shocks are toast. If it rebounds up once and settles then it is fine.

Basically if you don't notice the back end floating around as you drive it's probably fine.
 
Potholes will seem rougher with new struts (all else equal, similar dampening design to the new originals) but obviously overall handling and a floaty-boat feeling should improve (though a Civic wouldn't suffer floaty-boat as much as larger sedans).

If it sees much salted winter roads, I would carefully inspect the strut spring seat. It can rust out and drop that corner of the vehicle onto the tire, and nothing good comes from that if it happens while driving. Similarly the top spring mount can rust but that is not so easily fixed on a unibody vehicle.
 
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Rear un-powered wheels still contribute to handling and ride performance in a front-drive car, but yes your front wheels take more of the abuse. If there isn't something clearly wrong with the struts then don't bother. However, if you're looking to sell the car in 5 years or so they might be worth doing just so you can tell potential buyers that the struts have been done. Kind of up to you at that point. I know I don't like buying something that needs suspension work, especially an old Honda where stuff rots out underneath.

On the flip side, if you're just going to have it towed to the junkyard several years from now, don't sink any money into it if you don't absolutely need to. That's just rust-belt automotive tipping 101

Side note: my old Civic ran Tokico struts and they held up really well on some of the roads that were in less-than-stellar shape.
 
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Not discounting any of the advice from others. Does the car use any oil? How much per year have you spent on repairs and maintenance for the last three years?

If you want to get another 5 years of use out of it, and if the rear struts' parts and labor total about $300 to $350, it would be within expectations of annual expenses for keeping the car running. This really depends on whether you feel that the "ride" you'll have for the next five years will not leave you with an unhappy feeling.

Last year, I replaced all the shocks on my SUV, all the ball-joints, a CV-joint/axle assembly and a sway-bar bushing. I was "trying out" a repair shop since my mechanic had just retired. The new guys cheated me out of $700 just for the ball-joints and shocks alone -- in their parts-markup and their labor charges. I later sought a separate estimate for the tire shop where I'd previously been in the habit of having that type of work done. The entire bill was $2,500.

Most people would tell me I'm crazy, but I'll get another ten years out of the vehicle; it might outlast me -- to be passed on to my brother. And -- it's a sweet ride. For the next five years, given what has been done to the car over the last three years, I expect to spend less than $150 annually for oil changes and miscellaneous. There's nothing left to do to it, except to reset a security-system door sensor. I'm not going to bother.
 
If you did suspension work on the front, then doing the rear struts make sense as a worn rear will accelerate the wear of the front suspension and steeering. The ride is not bumpier, but more "push-pull" with worn struts, as if some one engaged in tug-of-war on your body.

Now, the countering factor is that your Civic generation has flaky transmissions, meaning that it might die before you get to use the full life of your new struts.
 
I'm with ElFenix. As part of an expectation for annual upkeep expense, it's chump-change. If you're as indigent as my younger brother, you might try and avoid it; you might just hope it will last as long as your expectations for the car and live with a bumpy ride for 5 years. If you look at your situation as someone with annual and monthly average automotive expenses in a comparison to new-car expenses like monthly payments with or without interest, insurance with or without full-comprehensive, then maybe you budget your money so you simply expect repairs to a certain amount every year.

New shocks, though, make an old ride feel new.

I had a '79 Civic that was 18 years old and expected to last another 10 years. How would that be possible? Well, I replaced the front brakes and wheels with Accord parts. I had new struts. The engine had been overhauled at 140,000. It had an Accord 5-speed tranny to replace the stock 4-speed. I had rebuilt the carburetor, and totally renewed the emissions control parts and the exhaust manifold.

One Sunday, I was going into DC to teach my database theory class. I remember thinking the car would last ten more years and drive better than brand new, and I felt like it was almost going to be airborne. I slowed down. Came home from class that afternoon, going south on the 95 past Potomac Mills. The Sunday traffic from the 495 beltway connections was backing up, and there was creeping traffic all the way to the shopping center. I was at a dead stop.

Some A**hole in a red Toyota 4Runner was listening to his loud music and eyeballing some chick in another lane -- coming up behind me. He rear-ended my Super-Civic and totaled it. I had my freaking seatbelt on. The insurance company gave me $1,000. I'd got another 30,000 miles after the engine work, and the other parts -- probably about $500 or $600-worth -- had been added over the last three or four years.

But you weep when you think you've lost the ability to become "airborne".

Rest in Peace, my sweet, sweet ride . . . . Rest in peace . . .
 
ElFenix said:
a pair of rear struts on that car is $50. the job can be done with hand tools. do iiiiiiiiit
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Ability, Labor, time, safety. The original poster is long gone, I suspect, but if he's gonna DIY, he needs to be young enough, for one. He'll need to rent a spring compressor, and technically, you're not supposed to use an impact gun on the tool. Then there is busting free that big nut on top, which is probably corroded.
BonzaiDuck said:
I'm with ElFenix. As part of an expectation for annual upkeep expense, it's chump-change. If you're as indigent as my younger brother, you might try and avoid it; you might just hope it will last as long as your expectations for the car and live with a bumpy ride for 5 years. If you look at your situation as someone with annual and monthly average automotive expenses in a comparison to new-car expenses like monthly payments with or without interest, insurance with or without full-comprehensive, then maybe you budget your money so you simply expect repairs to a certain amount every year.

New shocks, though, make an old ride feel new.

I had a '79 Civic that was 18 years old and expected to last another 10 years. How would that be possible? Well, I replaced the front brakes and wheels with Accord parts. I had new struts. The engine had been overhauled at 140,000. It had an Accord 5-speed tranny to replace the stock 4-speed. I had rebuilt the carburetor, and totally renewed the emissions control parts and the exhaust manifold.

One Sunday, I was going into DC to teach my database theory class. I remember thinking the car would last ten more years and drive better than brand new, and I felt like it was almost going to be airborne. I slowed down. Came home from class that afternoon, going south on the 95 past Potomac Mills. The Sunday traffic from the 495 beltway connections was backing up, and there was creeping traffic all the way to the shopping center. I was at a dead stop.

Some A**hole in a red Toyota 4Runner was listening to his loud music and eyeballing some chick in another lane -- coming up behind me. He rear-ended my Super-Civic and totaled it. I had my freaking seatbelt on. The insurance company gave me $1,000. I'd got another 30,000 miles after the engine work, and the other parts -- probably about $500 or $600-worth -- had been added over the last three or four years.

But you weep when you think you've lost the ability to become "airborne".

Rest in Peace, my sweet, sweet ride . . . . Rest in peace . . .
Click to expand...
The entire DMV area has garbage drivers. I almost would have been severely injured on Kenilworth Ave if I had been traveling in the left lane instead of the right. There was an SUV traveling southbound on the northbound lanes and it would have been a head on collision. I was working pizza delivery and the destination was on the right side. Otherwise, I'd probably be dead or disabled.
 
In some cases a simple fix would only require renewing the shock's rubber bushings although that in itself will bring challenges of its own tools/talent-wise.
 
I've told the story before: I let go of a '64 SS Impala classic in '77 just because there was 3 feet of snow on the ground and I didn't want to replace the heat-sending switch that informed the dash-board temperature light -- for a song. Girlfriend had called it an "old beauty queen", but with the rebuilt engine I had it at 125 mph on a north Texas highway on New Year's of '76. Would've been worth $25,000 ten years later. Punishing myself ever since, squeezing blood out of used-car stones. I had lost the car, and the girlfriend as well. I was even more stupid for replacing it with a '73 Volvo 164, and the girlfriend had called me an A**hole for manually shifting the auto-trans in it because it was exhibiting a problem otherwise. I'm even ashamed to tell this story -- and it is now 43 years later! 1977 was the year of "seriously moronic stupidity".

Keep a spread-sheet! Enter the mileage, parts-replacement or service description and expense for every shop order. The information can be very useful later on. But like I said -- refurbishing a suspension on a car with good engine and tranny will seem worth the money if you can really feel the difference in the ride.
 
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