Making your Old Ride feel New Again

Feeling the road a little too much these days? Not as thrilled as you used to be with your car’s ride? If you’re loving the idea of hanging on to your older vehicle, but miss how it drove years ago, there are some things to consider doing to deliver a better driving experience.

One relatively quick and easy improvement could be replacing your vehicle’s shock absorbers. But you may want to do more to really get a smoother ride. Bring your ride in for a check of its tie rod ends, lower control arm bushings, sway bar bushings and sway bar links. Some signs of bad tie rods include a feeling of looseness in the steering, hearing a clunking or grinding noise on tight turns, and/or uneven tire wear.

Control arm bushings are what connect the control arm to your vehicle’s frame. They help isolate vibration, so if you’re experiencing lots of vibration this is a good part to consider replacing.

Sway bars are parts that help reduce your vehicle’s body roll when you take a quick corner or hit a bumpy patch of road (which Connecticut has lots of these days, thanks to winter potholes!). Sway bars connect your opposite wheels together and make your vehicle’s suspension roll stiffness tighter.

So if you’re getting clunking noises in the front end and you’ve got a lot of roll, replacing these parts can give your vehicle a “tighter” feel.

What should you budget for these fixes? An average to have in mind is around $200 in parts and labor for sway bar links and somewhere around $125 for bushings. Lower control arm bushings vary, and can be as high as $485. You might also consider replacing your shocks and struts if they’re worn. That might cost around $400 for rear shocks, and somewhere from $800-1400 for front struts, depending on whether you’d need to replace the whole assembly or not.

If you’re as concerned about your current gas mileage as you are about getting a smoother ride, you might want to do a fuel injection service on your older vehicle. As cars get older, the intake ports and the injectors that make the car run more efficiently can get dirty and clogged. You can get some better gas mileage results as well as better fuel response from your engine by doing a fuel injection service. The cost should run around $170.

For many drivers, an integral part of the driving experience is getting great sound from the stereo system. If you’re driving an older vehicle, you’re probably missing out on a lot of cool advances in car stereos. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to integrate your car stereo with your iPod, iPhone or satellite radio, for instance? What about a Bluetooth connection for your cell? We recommend a visit to JoDi’s in Canton, CT orAttention to Detail in Middletown, CT if you want to see what’s new in car stereo systems.

It doesn’t have to be expensive to change your entire commuting experience by having the most modern communication upgrades incorporated in your older vehicle’s dash. For a truly awesome sound experience, you might even go so far as to replace the rubber trim around your vehicle’s doors, which will give you a quieter ride so you can have an optimal listening environment for your new stereo equipment.

So if you’re enjoying your older vehicle, doing the regular maintenance to keep it running smoothly, and loving having no new car payment, make a little investment in these ideas. And then…enjoy the ride that much more!

Through DrivenCT, Hoffman Auto Group's goal is to help educate motorists on how to get the most life out of their vehicles. We provide useful information on the newest models and how to care for them, fun destinations to drive them to, and what performance products are worth buying and which ones aren’t. All of our articles feature insight and knowledge from the experts in the automotive industry – our employees.  Many of our employees are direct contributors to our articles, and are featured sources.To read more from our blog visit www.drivenct.com