I read the many threads that talk about which parts to change ie strut bearing, bushings and what not.
question is...did you see any damage with the parts.
it seems most are changing out the pieces as a precaution.

Rubber components will ware out over time. Isolation sleves, dust boots, spring pearch bushings - all made from rubber and take a beating under there. The bearings are cheap, 20 bucks each. It's just good cheap insurance that your suspension will be quiet after you finished.

Would you rather take it apart again a year later - or - for about 100 bucks, have what I like to call a Suspension Tuneup done while you have it all apart.

Sort of like your 60K engine tune up. Would you wait till it doesn't run anymore to tune it up?

Apply that theory to your suspension and tune it up!

For sure. I remember when I had my suspension apart, the iso. sleeves at the ends of the springs were worn...not to the point where they needed to be replaced, but at 24.5k miles, they were not going to last much longer so I replaced them.
BTW I got an alignment last week. At first the guy said I needed a 4 wheel alignment. I told him about only needing a 2 wheel job...he insisted that I needed the 4 wheel job. I went back to pick it up and he said "You were right, your car only needs a 2 wheel alignment...that's rare for Japanese cars." I said thanks and drove off. It's nice to know that there are honest people out there among all the rip-off artists.

I just did the full H&R/AGX on a 1998 SE with 80k miles.

All I replaced were the two cheesy plastic front strut bearings(20 each), all four piston dust-cover/bumpers($120 total), the gray plastic cover that covers the lower coil on both from springs (~30). I reused everything else. All the other rubber pieces looked fine.

If you've got the $$$$ and the time to wait for all the little strut components to come in, then do them all. But all those little pieces add up to quite a bit extra.

It's also not that big of a deal to replace something later. It would take be about 30 minutes to rebuild each corner now knowing what I'm doing. It's not like you're yanking the engine and tranny(and might as well replace the clutch, etc).... It's really not that big of a deal. A 2 wheel alignment should only cost ~50 bucks.


-RMB