I took my accord in for some tires and alignment at my local dealer. They have been very good to me in the past, and actually quite reasonable with tires. Same price or a bit less than I can get them from tirerack.com. Anyway, they had me up on the rack, and the tires had some chopping. Ok, no sweat. Replace and align.
Well, after about an hour, they come back to tell me it cannot hold alignment. Then quote me $2100 to replace struts. I was quite surprised at 130k miles that it cant hold alignment. I'm like, ok. I have done struts and control arms and bushings on several cars. No sweat. I can just do everything rubber and pay about $1000 and have everything new. Wow. I was blown away to see FOUR control arms (Five if you include the sway bar link), and a total of 8 bushings! Also, having three bushings pressed in a knuckle. The complexity of the rear seems so entirely unnecessary. Its not like its some complex rear steering either. I see no functional need for so much mechanics in the rear. My BMW 540i had far less, and its an engineer's car.
Oddly, the front is somewhat conventional. One control arm, no pressed in bushings to replace. And conventional shock tower.
Despite the complexity, does it seem odd that this vehicle wont align after 130k miles? It was driven 90% on good highway. Its not that it drove that bad either. Inspection of the bushings showed most of them in descent condition. I might see a little separation in the shock tower bushing, but its questionable. Anyway, is this a knows weakness of this vehicle? WIth the exceedingly large number of rubber items in this suspension, I can be convinced that could be a bit sensitive to wear.
I'm curious on other's experience with this.
