On my (new) 90' Legacy wagon I have found that when I hit a bump the rear end seems to sway. It is not a good feeling .

 

I got the car up on ramps and everything seems to be in order, then of course I am used to working on Jeeps. The swaybar is attached and seems tight.

 

I do have the air ride suspention (I think) I have a hieght button on the dash that does squat. I checked the tire pressure (one was at 60psi) and got them all to 32 PSI.

 

I am lost with this problem and I hoping I can fix it.

I'm not sure I understand your question. Just to clarify:

 

You drive over an up-and-down bump, and it causes the rear of the car to:

 

1. Sway side-to-side?

 

OR

 

2. Perform of a rocking motion?

It sways side to side, It would almost seem that the rear after the bump/pothole will track diferently than the front. That gives me the feeling of sliding to the side of the bump/pothole.

 

I hope that helps.

I've replaced the rear stabilzer bushings twice. Also check the struts all the way around.

Look at the tires too, if you by some WEIRD chance have different tires, fron to rear, it can feel very starnge. A friend once had radials on one end and bias ply on the other and it felt like his car was on top of bowling balls!

I will check the tires when my wife gets home. I only have knowledge of Jeeps and this feeling is not something I am used to.

 

How do I check the bushings and struts to see if they need replaced?

Push down on the rear o the car. If it bounces up and down instead of just coming up and stopping, then the struts are probably blown. That wa the case with my Impreza 2 weeks ago. Repaced the struts in the rear with kyb agx's. Turned half way up with stock springs and it rides better than my boss's wrx. The fronts are going in on thursday. But I have been thinking about replacing the bushings as well just for safety/ maintanence, well and for carving turns.

My Legacy had a similar symptom. Turned out to be a bad strut on the rear driver's side corner. The beat strut allowed the wheel to continue bouncing and didn't dampen the oscillations of the spring once it returned from being compressed by the bump/pothole. This caused the wheel to bounce and didn't allow it to plant square on the road for traction. This was the cause in my car. I would imagine a shot bushing could do the same thing.

 

BMXPunk's test is the best method to test. I put in KYB GR-2's. Not the most high performance biut great struts for the price.

 

-Heikki

I have experience a similar symptom (on a different car) when one rear wheel had different amounts of toe-in. You can check this visually.

Is the toe-in adjustable on these cars?

 

Smiffy

this happened to me in my 91 Legacy sedan and it turned out to be that the sub frame had rotted out and needed to be replaced. the subframe is the part the rear suspension connects to, on the top, then that is connected to the unibody by 4 bolts. The frame rotted out around the bolt holes.

Originally posted by AWD Yahoo

this happened to me in my 91 Legacy sedan and it turned out to be that the sub frame had rotted out and needed to be replaced. the subframe is the part the rear suspension connects to, on the top, then that is connected to the unibody by 4 bolts. The frame rotted out around the bolt holes.

 

ive been watching this thread as my car has the same problem, this weekend im going to be replacing the intake manifold gaskets and am planning a thourough inspection of the rear bushings....i just replace the old struts with KYB GR-2's last summer, so im thinking its not the struts....

as far as the rust issue, mine has NO rust, and its doing this......maybe not important but ill post back the results...maybe some pics....this is driving me nuts also ...literally