When I got the car last summer I noticed that the tire would drag on the fender going over a minor bump. I have joked that going over an expansion joint was enough but it wasn't quite that bad. I figured the spring had collapsed and changed out both front springs with the OEM left and right for the GSL-SE that Mazdatrix has. The new left spring was a almost an inch and a half taller than the old spring. The right spring was perhaps a quarter inch taller, not much at all. I changed the strut tubes at the same time with the OEM offerings. This all made a big difference but the car is still 7/8" lower on the left front when measured at the high point of the fender. Thinking the rear could be partly responsible I also swapped the rear springs from left to right when I was changing out the shocks in the rear. The left spring was about 1/8" shorter than the right and swapping these made no noticeable difference.

That is the setup, now the question. Is there anything I have overlooked that could cause this much difference? I can't see any evidence of even a minor fender bender although I suspect there was something minor. It all looks straight under the hood. The hood has not been resprayed but the fenders and the panels in the front have, but I was assuming rock chip repair.

From what I can tell there shouldn't be a situation where there was say damage to the left front and they put in a non SE strut which would shorten it. Or is this a possibility?

If nobody has any ideas I will just get three of the strut adjustment spacers and put them in. That should reduce the difference to 7 mm.

 

Look at the top strut mount under the hood. The rubber isolator that the struts bolt to. It could be collapsed on on side.

 

Thanks for the reply but it isn't this. I had it all apart when I replaced the springs and strut tubes and cleaned and degreased everything. The isolator was in good shape. I ordered the 5mm shims yesterday and I will have it all apart again when those show up.

 

I would check again for damage. A few years back a guy I knew went into a ditch pretty hard with his Focus, and after that the car wouldn't sit level. Turned out the subframe tweaked from the crash. The car "looked" fine but one of the corners was something like an inch lower than the others, and when he put lowering springs on it he had clearance issues.

 

I agree about damage. My car had front end damage and the left front sat 1/2" lower than the rest of the car with new springs.

 

a bend in the tension rod cant translate to a lot of change in the control arm.

 

my entire front subframe was tweeked.