Glad to hear the struts are easy to get out. And, a lot of parts stores will use their spring compressor to mount the struts to the assembly if you buy the struts from them. A lot of the major brands also put a lifetime warranty on their replacement strut cartridges.

I'll measure my tires today to see how much tread is on them at about 16K miles. Does anyone know how much tread comes on an OEM Bridgestone tire?

 

11/32" is what most of the factory tires have on them. As for the struts, I put on a set of lifetime warranty Monroe's

 

David, I'm really glad you popped in here. How are the Monroe's working out for you? Would you think they are equal to KYB's?

On the hubs, I don't know, changing the rotors made no difference. I had not considered a vibration coming from the strut assembly, suppose it's possible. Maybe I'll do the struts first, since that will require an alignment and see how it goes. It sure feels like unsprung rotating mass though. Right through the steering rack.

Hey that's a nice strut compressor! I'm straight bush league, with the old forcing-screw type.

On the tires.. who knows. I've always had less than rated wear from tires. I'll take the blame. Plus I care less what the center tread is like, once the edges go, I consider them to be shot. FWIW I did have a proper alignment done at the last set. The car wasn't really 'out' much at all.

 

Tom,

The Monroe's seem to be working out fine. The dampening seems a little crisper than the OEM KYB's but not as stiff as Bilstein's tend to be. All in all, I'm happy with them. Once you have yours replaced, check the front axles for a bad CV joint that might be causing your vibration as well as the bearings. Both of ours seem to be doing fine except for struts.

The strut compressor was a deal from a Goodyear store that shutdown and the owner put some of the equipment up on CraigsList. You won't believe me but that compressor only cost $40...... Retail is right at $700 or so but it sure makes changing struts safe and easy. I know that you will get this done but for everyone else, make sure you get the car re-aligned after replacing the struts.

I normally run 41psi in my tires to get a better turn in response and crisper off camber steering. By running that, the tread wear is even across the entire width of the tire. So far these new Michelin Energy Savers seem to be a good tire but wet braking has not been tested much in northern Georgia this year as we are in a long dry spell.