My 2004 996 C2 with 8.5 and 11 x19" Champion RG5's, is having issues with the rear suspension on the passenger side. When taking a right hand turn while accelerating at anything above a slow to moderate rate, the passenger rear tire is coming in contact with the fender liner and the strut spring. No issues with the drivers side or while taking left turns. It started out only doing it occationally, now it's pretty consistant. Other than slightly more rapid tire wear on the passenger side, it seems to be driving fine. No funny noises, etc.

I took the wheel off the other day to inspect things and gently tugged on the suspension bushings with a pry bar. Nothing seems (at least to me) loose, broken or out of place. The only suspect thing seemed to be a bit too much wiggle in the innermost toe arm bushing.

Any ideas or experiences with "typical" wear items or conditions that may cause this?

 

What is the offset?

 

I couldn't get mine back in spec after lowering w/ coilovers and it was wearing out the inside edges.

Installed a set of Agency Power adjustable dog bones and all is well.

 

I believe it is ET 68 for the rear and ET 46 for the front.

After thinking more about it, I wonder if the ball joint on the rear control arm might be worn or broken. I think the relation of base of the ball joint to thread looks more skewed than the driver side. Is a ball joint failure on the control arm common? How would you check it to see if it's worn or broken? Can the ball joint be pressed out?

I've seen inexpensive control arms on ebay for $100 ish. Are these OEM or knock offs?

 

Based on that offset, its not the wheel.
I would check all wearable items in that area (bushings, bearings, shocks, etc) for play.
Don't know about the control arms or ball joints though.
good luck

 

Found these rebuilt control arms at Vertex. The rebuilt arms have replacement ball joints available for $39 each.

Do the ball joints on these control arms go bad that frequently?

http://www.vertexauto.com/showitem.aspx?&id=187610&name=Rebuilt%20Control%20 Arm%20W%2Fball%20Joint%20See%20Notes#ItemNotes1Div

 

When the rear wheel is off the ground, is there supposed to be any play in the rear top strut bearing / bushing assembly? Do these go bad very often?

When I had that wheel off the ground, it seems like there may have been some play there and I wasn't sure if that is "normal" or not.

 

The AP dog bones are great for adjusting camber. The rear toe links will, of course, adjust toe.

914rrr: When was your last alignment?

-Matt

 

Well yeah.......but when I got my camber back in spec, it seemed like I had more toe adjustment that just wasn't there with it way out.

 

Hasn't been aligned since I'ved owned it, approx 15k miles which includes 3 PCA DE's. I was hoping to diagnose it before an alignment, so I didn't have to align it twice.

 

Had it aligned, and the alignment tech found the problem. It wasn't the suspension at all. BTW, I would highly recommend the tech (Blake at Accurate Auto Body) to anybody in the Nashville area, and it crazy cheap...$69.95 for a 4 wheel alignment, set up any way you want.

The transmission mount had totally failed. The rubber mounts were completely broken on both sides and the lower rubber portion of the mounts had been almost completely ground away. This was allowing the transmission (and every thing connected to it) to shift side to side almost an inch while cornering!

Luckily I have the 2002-2004 Tiptronic trans mount which is the same one used by the Turbos. The earlier 996's require the tranmission to be removed to replace them, and the dealer won't even do that, they will only replace the entire tranny! I replaced the mount yesterday, not too difficult for a garage DIY job. FYI, the bolts going through the mount into the trans were mega tight, requiring a 12" cheater pipe on the ratchet to remove them.