squirrely rear end...
 

I did some searching and the only thing I found was posts to check the suspension.

Anytime I hit little bumps or drive in the wet/pouring rain. My 88 vert gets extremely squirrely in the back end.

Suspension seems insanely tight, I feel every damn bump something fierce. No bouncy though. The alignment might be bad, but I can see that making it feel like my rearend was tossed to the side 3-5 inches when I hit a bump.


Anyone got any ideas?

worn dtss bushings

Yep, mine did the exact same thing, really freaky when your rear steps out like that. Get the DTSS eliminator bushings.

Are these a huge pain in the ass to install or are we talking a 3 hour wrenching job?

Other folks have said they replaced the bushings themselves. I tried using a C-clamp with a combo of sockets/washers/bolt, but I bent 2 or 3 clamps before giving up. I had to remove my rear hubs, take them to shop, have them press out the old ones, and press in the new ones.

I tried busting the rear hub loose, but I couldn't even get it to budge. Can't seem to get anything in there to pop that damn tab up either. I'll have to try grinding it away. I definitely don't like the way it was setup.

Mazdatrix sells the eliminator bushings right?

yes, racing beat has them also

Instead of automaticly replacing the bushings you need to first make sure the rear wheels have the proper alignment and that the tires being used are not crappy dried out tires, and that the shocks are in decent condition.

All those should be checked and fixed as needed before ripping apart the rear steering DTSS bushings. Any one of those will cause bad bump steer, long before bad DTSS bushings.

The DTSS eliminator bushings sold by mazdatrix are made by racing beat. Either place you go its $40 for them.

Shocks
 

I have had two instances of a bad rear shock causing the car to be very unstable.
In the first case the shock was internally broken. No oil stains or other signs of wear. When I removed the rear spring the rod wasn't connected to anything inside. Just moved up and down with no resistance. The other time I had a leaky rear shock, wearing but still working. The car wasn't nearly as bad but still something was wrong. Just a second to the other post. (I have replaced the rear steer bushings on three cars and never saw any real bad wear on the bushings I removed. I don't think they move around a whole lot so if they were really worn out you could probably shake the rear wheel side to side.

I'll take the car to a shop and have them check out the suspension and do an alignment. It's an area I'm quite frankly not comfortable messing with.

The tires are brand new so that rules that one out. (I had hoped it was the tires causing it because I drove it home with 4 bald tires and had the same problems as I do now with 4 brand new ones)

Thanks guys

well if they are crappy cheapo tires and over inflated that too could cause the problem.

What is the tire pressure and what size and brand of tires??

225/xx R15's Cooper Cobra's (I know, not the best thing in the world, but I have worse on my other 7)

The shocks front and back are so incredibly stiff that I can't push the car down at all. 1/2 an inch at best.. and that's standing on it. There's no give at all.

All shocks are supposedly new

That is the EXACT same problem I had until someone told me to lower my rear tire pressures from the 35 that I was running to 28-29 lbs. The problem totally went away. The car handles prefectly now! We had a Miata that was also very sensitive to rear tire presures. It had to be run at 26 lbs. all around.

I'll let some air out of the tires and see how that goes.

This vert corners like a summabitch too.. as long as their are no bumps :)

I think it actually holds better in the turns than my GXL...

you can check the rear toe bushes

jack it up , stick you head under the back end ( be careful ) get someone to push and pull on the rear wheels - if the bolt moves in the bush then chances are that its shot at

its a very cheap way of checking :D

Stu
( mines does the same BTW and my local tuner showed me how bad they were - i have a set here just dreading fitting them :D )