Hey everyone, i got a weird story i was hoping someone here could help me figure out :S

Today i went out and bought myself two winter tires because my old ones were finished and had them installed straight away. Before i had my tires changed, my car had quite a stiff ride with very little bounce (btw its not my civic this is my mx3). As soon as i got the new tires on and i drove around a little, i noticed my car was unbelievably bouncy... and not just a little bouncy like a luxury car would have, but bouncy and extremely stiff at the same time! I had a few friends by and we went out and we all noticed how unbelievably bouncy and uncomfortable it was.
At this point i read a little about this and apparently if my car does this, it means my struts must be finished, or something like that. Im just so confused as to how my tire change could have done that?

and the car is a lot more bouncy on the rear, where i didnt even change the tires or do anything!

Any input about this helps, im really curious as to how this could happen and now its gonna cost me a fortune to get the struts replaced eventually.

thanks for reading

 

did you put enough air in the tires?

 

i had it changed at a tire store, so the guy there pumped it, and i havent checked how much psi its at (its -30 celcius outside, canadian winter is a bitch) but could this actually be caused by underinflation? i mean the car is so god damn bouncy a lesser person would get car sick in 2 minutes of riding.


and thanks for the reply!

 

You lose 1 PSI per 10 degree drop in temp. So if the tires were at 32 PSI in the shop as soon as you took them home and put them on your car (outside) obviously you lost at least 5PSI. Also Snow tires SHOULD BE USED IN A SET OF FOUR NOT TWO. In fact I am not allowed to sell only two snow tires unless the vehicle already has them. Also the best tread should be on the rear axle (even if it's a FWD car). I have been selling tires since 1993 so I know what I am talking about.

 

well the problem is that i had no tread left on my fronts. my rears are all seasons with like30% tread but im running very low on cash so unfortunatly thats what im at till i get some money. =/ also i know what you mean, i spun out into a 180 a few times but i sort-of did that on purpose to see if would actually happen lol. in a secluded area of course.

I will chck the pressure in the morning and report back! thanks for the help

 

Could be overinflated too. There's really no way to mess up the struts just by taking the wheels on and off to change the tires.

I agree that having just two snow tires on the front is very dangerous. You will get good drive traction so you can easily get going too fast, then the rear end will spin out on you. If you can't afford 4 new ones, put the new tires on the back and use your old ones on the front. This will also help see if the different ride is due to the tires.

 

ok this is weird
checked the pressure, all my tires are at 30-32 psi when my car is outside in the cold (still my -30 celsius) but the problem is still here

I noticed the car is excessively low on the rear driver side, like there is barely a quarter inch between the wheel and the outside curve of the wheel well (there is about 4-5inches space in the wheel well) the car is old of course and the back has always looked lower than the front to me, but never this low, and only on one side. the other side has about 2-3 inches between the outside of the wheel well and the wheel.

could one broken strut completely get my car to bounce around liek crazy?? or do i just have amazingly bouncy tires...

thanks for all the help

and the reason i put the tires in the front is because my old tires have NO tread whatsover, barely a 1/8th inch deep line left for the tread, so i have 0 traction. at least like this i can move lol

 

On the low rear side, check whether the strut spring is broken and whether the shock absorber is leaking fluid.

 

Like Ron said, you need to check for broken springs. The car drops when a spring fails, not the strut.

 

well you could also slap some regular tires back on the car and see if it still rides horible... but if it rides perfect then it might be the tires out of round posibly giving your car a hoping feeling...