I put new axles and front brakes on the '00 SE over the weekend. Now the car totally rides wierd! It's like the left front strut is really soft compared to the right side. It was off the ground more on that side due to a caliper problem, could that have made the strut go bad or does it need some ride time on it to basically reset the gas inside it or something. They seem to be original struts, and the car has 147k on it. I was hoping to get some more time out of them since I'm not using it as a performance car.

Can anyone suggest some good priced struts, they're like $115 from orielly auto parts w/o the spring. They do sell fully charged struts, but I'm afraid to ask.

 

u can buy the last pair of struts i have for cheaper than that shipped to ur door..their the rear though andi know u mentioned front struts

 

When you put the axles in did you remove the strut to knuckle bolts? If you removed the stabilizer bolts, the car's suspension should be loaded before the links are tightened, same fir the LCA.

 

The strut to knuckle bolts are the only things I took off. The knuckle swung down enough to get the axle out without having to remove anything else.

 

As those bolts were removed, try an alignment first.

 

If that doesn't fix the situation, would I need another alignment after a strut change? The camber is all preset, I would think I could do a strut change without effecting the alignment.

 

There is some slop in the attachment, but probably not that much to cause majpr problems, but it wouldn't do any harm to have it checked, along with the front suspension components.