Starting last year sometime I noticed a clunking sound coming from my passenger side rear suspension. I never thought much of it and chalked it up to worn out/tired shocks and had intended on replacing my shocks/struts/springs anyhow.

I only drive the car in the winter so this past fall I installed brand new H&R lowering springs along with Bilstein HD shocks/struts. Unfortunately I cannot appreciate the new handling upgrades as the rear passenger clunk is still there!

Along with this clunk is a feeling of the rear end of the car stepping out when going over uneven pavement surfaces (cracks, ruts, etc) feels like the back end is about to start fishtailing which can be very unnerving on ivy Canadian highways @ 100km/hr! I replaced the rear passenger sway bar end link which i suspected to be causing the clunk... no fix at all, still clunks and still squirly in the rear. The technician who installed the sway bar end link noted that the rear sway bar bushings are worn out and need to be replaced. I have ordered the bushings and am waiting on taking it back in to have them installed until I am certain this will fix my problem. I have also read that the squirliness may be attributed to control arm bushings, how can I check these?

I had the car aligned after the sway bar link was installed and the rear camber was out and not adjustable. I have not noticed any issues with tire wear.

Other than this issue with the rear suspension (fishtail feeling and clunking at low speed) the car handles really well on my new setup!

Thanks in advance for any help the forum can provide!

 

What I would tell you to try is to find a long sweeping turn that you can take at say about 40 KPH. Now, in the middle of the turn, give the car a little bit of gas. Does the back end feel like it is going to step out but only moves a little bit? If yes, then your lower, front control arms for the rear of the car are worn and that is causing your looseness feeling and also your camber to be out by some amount. In short, the tires are turning slightly as you apply power, making the car track a little different. Replacing them is easy. Lift the tire off of the ground, remove the tire, undo 2 bolts holding the lower, forward arm in place, remove the old arm and reverse the sequence to put the new arm in. Very easy. This arm is known for wearing out and causing what you are seeing. Since you are there, you will probably want to also check the upper control arm as this can get a little bit of slop in it too, but this normally only leads to the camber being out on the tires (ie, the top of the tires tend to lean in on the car).

 

I'd say rear control arm bushings, a noted item that wears out with these cars. Relatively easy/inexpensive to replace.
================================================
Jaguar - it's not an automobile, it's a Motorcar

 

Yes, have the same problem. Do your tires tip in?

 

tjandy, what you will normally see if you have the lower,forward control arm failing is when you go in for an alignment, the shop will find that the toe on the tires is off by a little bit (ie, both tires will tend to point to the center of the front bumper) and then they adjust the lower control arm to fix that. This tends to cause the top part of the tires to lean in some (since you are kicking the lower part of the tire out to correct the toe issue). This isn't anything major, but if you look, you will see the tire leaning some.

 

My rear tires tip out at the top. I just purchased the car last weekend from a friend. He said that the tires are 3 months old and they are shot. Worn down to the belts on the outside.

 

should be changed also. Lousy quality. Real easy to change and shouldn´t be that expensive (at least if not bought from Jag dealership). Did it on my X-type and no more clunks and car feels a lot more solid.

I changed the front end also, same problem there. First I thought that I got the wrong part because the old ones were squeezed to half of the size of new ones.

Job worth doing, but still a pain in the butt..