I am about to begin rebuilding the front suspension of my 1999 Deville Concours. It has 134k miles on it now. We bought it when it had 120k miles on it. I already spent $500 on the parts needed to restore the rear braking system (calipers, rotors, pads). When we got it, the passenger front corner was also riding lower than it should. In the ten thousand miles since it has gotten worse, and if I am not extremely careful it bottoms out some. The steering feels wrong, too loose and unresponsive. And when going over bumps (especially in curves) it feels like the front wheels sometimes suddenly shift to a different direction, taking the whole car with them. Any one of these would make the car unpleasant to drive by itself, and I suspected tie rods were involved (and had heard some bad things about when they fail while going down the road).
I took it in for an estimate and was provided with a list of part numbers and things that are wrong with the front end. Lower ball joint, inner tie rod end, sway bar link, and strut on passenger front. Sway bar link and wheel hub bearing on driver front. The bushings on the motor mounts are going as well, so I will be replacing those ASAP to prevent secondary damage.
If money is no object, you could always just pay someone else to do this stuff. I was originally considering having the shop do it, but the estimate came up to $3,000 very quickly and that was more than I paid for the car. Part of the problem was that the shop was severely inflating the cost of the parts. I see now how they pay for all of those free bumper stickers they are handing out. I can't complain too much though, they did inspect the car for me and provide me with a shopping list. Most of this is going to be totally new territory for me, but that's how we learn. I picked up the Chilton manual already.
I am willing to put more than $3,000 into this car to get it back to specs, but if I am going to do it I am going to do it the old fashioned way with my old blood sweat and tears so that every bit of that money goes into new parts. There is something to be said for not always just tossing a car in the garbage because it would be cheaper to just go buy another used one, especially when you have the opportunity to see that the car gets brand new parts and the peace of mind that come with them.
So enough of the introductory lecture.
I have found that there is a remarkable lack of definitive information for those who have late 90's active electronic suspension Cadillacs. This is combined with considerable difficulty in finding the appropriate parts for these 'air ride' suspensions. General Motors is still carrying OEM struts for the driver's side front, for now, but has discontinued both the active electronic struts and the universally implemented control arms for the passenger's side front.
In the case of the control arm, it's the same for all Devilles, so there are a good number of aftermarket options available. The struts, however, are more 'fun' to hunt for. So far I have found a couple of very expensive aftermarket replacements that are being cranked out by smaller parts companies, but I suspect the exorbitant prices they are calling for are just due to apparent lack of supply in the market.
I do think I have found a cost effective OEM replacement, however, made by Arnott. SK-2178 is the Arnott part number for the kit. Be advised that there seems to be at least a little confusion about this kit. To begin with it has the name Arnott Shock Kit on some websites, which is not appropriate since the car uses (and the kit contains) struts for the front suspension. Furthermore, I found at least one website (O Reilly A.P.) which describes this particular kit as an active to passive conversion kit.
Arnott does make active-to-passive conversion kits, as do several other companies out there (Monroe, Strutmasters, ETC.), but if this thread is of particular interest to you and you are anything like me, you are pretty determined to maintain the original air ride of the car if at all possible. Part of the reason I bought this particular Deville was that it had this option, and I am willing to channel some resources into bringing it back to life.
So, back to the SK2178 'Shock' Kit. I have done some looking around online, and have had to do a lot of inferring to overcome the false idea put in my head from originally reading the description of the kit on O Reilly A.P. I finally have made sure for myself that this SK2178 kit DOES contain two electronic active struts that WILL replace the original ones on the late 90's Devilles with the air ride.
Here's more good news, you can get this kit for about $350 retail. You can get it on Amazon Prime right now for like $304, which is probably what I am about to do. And you can also get an extended version of this kit from Arnott that includes the shocks for the rear AND a new compressor (P-2585) for $899. That's not too shabby when you consider that GM is still asking $1004 as their ON SALE price for just one of the front struts! These things are fancy and all, but you guys need to lay off the crack rocks, GM. And yes, if you just happen to only need the rear shocks with the active setup, Arnott has that kit as well (AS-2177).
I have seen people on here say don't buy Arnott, and that stuff is junk. I also don't much listen to those kind of claims. Arnott's products are fairly well reviewed online, anyway. And before someone comes in and says, 'Hey, this is just an advertisement for Arnott!', well of course it is. That's the whole point. Don't get mad just because I'm doing it without even getting paid and without any prior arrangement or knowledge of the company. I'm trying to help people in a similar bind get workable solutions.
Because my funds are limited, and because it is pretty critical to get the inner tie rod end and ball joint replaced on the passenger's side before doing anything else, I am going to do everything that corner needs *besides* strut, strut mount, and coil spring replacement and save those three things for a little later when I can afford them. I assume the sway bar link is eaten up and will need to be removed and possibly sawed to detatch it from the control arm, so I am going to plan to swap out the sway bar link, inner and outer tie rod ends, and the control arm in one session.
The driver's side will get, at the very least, a new sway bar link, strut, and coil spring. It will almost definitely get a new strut mount as well. Whether I will also redo the tie rods and control arm on that side right now remains to be seen, but if anything gets set aside for later those probably will if I can.
I'm going to need ball joint / tie rod separators, a coil spring compressor, a torque wrench, breaker bar, and a couple of other tools that I don't already have. Some are rentable from the parts store.
It sounds like the hardest parts of the strut job *should* be sub-assembling the new struts to the new coil springs, and the hardest part of the steering system job *should* be getting the old inner tie rod end out and the new one back in to the rack and pinion assembly.
Another quick note, I was originally going to attempt to swap out only the lower ball joint on the passenger side, but when considering the fact that it is riveted in and $20 more dollars gets me not only a new lower ball joint but has it assembled onto a control arm with brand new bushings, I decided that doing the whole control arm is probably the way to go.
So wish me luck, the plan is to start gathering the parts for the first job and jump on it on Christmas Eve.