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I had to have a strut replaced in my Civic at 20,000 miles. I was basically told to get used to it. I used to own a Dodge Stratus. It had front and rear double wishbone. It had some mechanical shortfalls but the suspension was not one of them. Why Honda made this change is baffling. Since the primary problem of the 7th gen seems to be centering on the front suspension I was wondering whether the Corolla struts need to be replaced almost as frequently as oil changes like with the Civic, or have Toyota's engineers solved the problem.

 
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they placed the macpherson struts in the front because its a cheaper design and also to give the front end a shorter look

 
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Yes, and also to create more room in the front to appeal to taller people. But with Civic losing market share to Mazda3 and Corolla and probably Nissan next, was tinkering with what was unique to the Civic a good idea, and with all the headaches that it creates for Civic owners?

btw I read that the 8th gen will almost definitely not return to the double wishbone.

 
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From what I know, Corolla's got the suspension part right.

I hear you though, my suspension had to be replaced and I can hear everyonce in a while something that sounds like it is off slightly.

 
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I had my front right strut go on my 02 at 18k miles.

 
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I don't know how it could be any worse. It's too soft to really corner well, the ride is awful, and you blow struts way more often than you should. The Corollas at least ride well and last longer.

 
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My front right was replaced at like 10000 miles

 
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You guys are scaring me... I'm dropping the car about an inch on stock shocks at 30k miles. I don't think they're blown yet, but how can I be sure? Oh and don't we have shocks not struts?

 
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I was thinking the biggest problem in 7thgen is the rear suspension because mine bouces like hell in the back.

 
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u can tell if ur shocks r blown

 
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Mcpherson struts have been around longer then some people on this site. Many auto makers including Porsche, Audi, BMW use them in theyre cars. Regarding our cars, I think the problem is the company Honda chose to make our strut, not the overall design. Our strut is cheap and wears out and leaks faster then any other car with a similiar design.

 
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Honda just didnt do a good job.... many performance cars use this type of set up, M3, Evo, WRX (Sti)........
and please stop saying shocks, we dont have shocks! generally.... shocks are outside the spring (ex. leaf springs and live rear axle cars have shocks). Struts are within the spring.... thats a simple way to think of it I guess.

 
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traces of oil leakage from the shaft is usually a dead give away. you can also tell if you compress the strut and it doesnt return up smoothly, or at all, its most likely blown. we got struts like whoa.

 
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^^^ yeah, oh, here's another way to test, if youre driving around and hit a bump and the car bounces twice... youre still ok, but it's going.... more than that, then it's almost time to replace. Or you can have the car parked and kind of push down on it with your body weight and see if it bounces.

 
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My car has 27000 miles and I have never had a problem... my car has been dropped 2 inches for almost a week now I guess we will see what happens...

 
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my cars dropped with sportlines on stock struts with 66k on it and no problems yet

 
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can struts be "in the process" of blowing? mine arent blown, but man my rides sucks. it definately wasnt like that, but after riding in others cars, mine always feels crappier. i'm going to replace them soon anyhow with something nicer, i want my smooth ride back. just wondering if i should replace the springs also? my car is an 02 coupe with 30k miles if that helps.

 
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i got progress springs (kind of a big drop) on my stock struts before. I had them about an entire year. ABout 6 months after having them, all my bump stops were ripped to hell from bottoming out. And on the highway on continous little bumps, the car would bounce up and down like a carnival ride.

i now have D2 coils and they are prettty good.

 
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sportlines teins and neuspeeds are designed to work with stock shocks i had mines (neuspeeds) for like a year and no problem with them

the main reason they changed the suspension setup was to reduce understeer yes understeer. the 02+ CTR and the ITR have mcphersons as well
a car that has a longer nose means that the mass of the nose from the wheels foward will not move to the back of the car on cornering, and it will cause more pressure on the wheels therefore creating understeer.
they went back to the mc pherson because they needed the front to be shorter and it also helped to reduce weight because the overall double wishbone setup was heavier than the new double wishbone (meaning suspension assembly swaybars etc...) weight
transfer was also possible since the suspension sits more to the front of the car leaving engine components like radiator battery and others close to the suspension and also closer to the radius of the wheel,meaning that weight will be distributed better trought the whole body.
in the track double wishbone is the best because if you have noticed indy cars and f1 cars even lemans cars have the tires as close as possible to the front and indy and f1 cars have almost no nose or a wing for a nose so they dont have that weight transfer problem plus they have implemented other designs to reduce the weight of it (f1 cars have suspensions so advanced that you cant even tell is double wishbone at fist sight)
i took that from a book like 300 pages thick about only suspension systems

ive never heard about corollas having suspension problems

 
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So I was wondering something similar to the original question. Were the original struts just poorly made or is the front suspension flawed by design (not because it's a macpherson strut design but more of the way Honda implimented it on the 7th gen Civic). My 02 had to have it's struts replaced at about 40K (in 04) and I know that the 03s have larger diameter struts. I am just curious, as some have wondered, if this is something that will have to be done every couple of years or so. Would aftermarket struts be any better if the Honda ones were just poor quality?

 
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no unless u drop ur car a lot or where you live there are a lot of potholes and stuff on the roads if you lower ur car then yeah ur shocks wont last that long

 
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nope... your confusing things. a Strut is a shock that also is an intergeral load bearing part of the suspension, Replacing the upper control arm.

e.g., All Struts are shocks but not all shocks are struts.