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I have a Civic Hatchback produced in Great Britain in 2001 (living in France). Since I replaced the control arms in 2014 I have had strange problems:

  1. I needed to install a washer between the castlenut and the arm when torquing the balljoint. This is because the castlenut could easily be tightened past the hole for the cotterpin. I recently changed the balljoints and again encountered the same problem. (The boot also looks a bit smashed to me)

After replacement of the balljoint and control arm

  1. I have had a problem with positive included angle and camber. It seems as though the control arms are just slightly too short!? Here is the front-right tire (after ~60,000 km):

Tire ware on outside edge

Here is the alignment that I did after replacing the control arms and tires:

enter image description here

The left column are the tolerable norms. The middle is before the alignment and the right is after. The terms are the following:

  • CARROSSAGE = camber
  • CHASSE = caster
  • INCLIN. PIVOT = Steering Axis Inclination
  • ANGLE INCLUS = Included Angle

These are the control arms that I installed:

The MOOOG part

So, I seriously regret not taking pictures of the old control arms and not comparing more closely. My suspicion was that I have the wrong lower arms. My VIN is SHHEP23701U006044, so it looks like the car was manufactured in Great Britain in 2001. This was the first year of this new model, and the car was in the first 7000 cars produced.

I called a Honda dealership in Great Britain and they told me that there is a split part number (51351-S6D-G00 rather than 51350-S6D-G00), but that the second number was introduced in 2007, after the Civic VII model was discontinued. This doesn't sound like the culprit to me.

Is it possible that all the parts catalogs and web pages give me the wrong control arm, and that I need some control arm from a previous or different model?

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  • Did you have the front wheels aligned after replacing the control arm? This is almost always necessary and may be the cause of your camber problem.
    – jwh20
    Mar 24, 2020 at 12:02
  • I did get an alignment at two different places, once after I replace the control arms, and then once after the shocks were replaced. They said they had no way to adjust the camber
    – krumpelstiltskin
    Mar 24, 2020 at 13:40
  • Well it's certainly possible that you have the wrong control arm for your specific model and market. I think your best bet is to contact a UK-based Honda dealer parts department and see if they are aware of market specific differences in this model.
    – jwh20
    Mar 24, 2020 at 13:57
  • @jwh20 : As stated at the end of the post, I did call a UK-based Honda dealer parts department. There was a split part introduced in 2007, after the Civic VII model was discontinued. Do you a part introduced that late could fit my car, which was in the first 7000 produced?
    – krumpelstiltskin
    Mar 24, 2020 at 14:05
  • 1
    The camber is basically set by the combination of the UPPER and lower control arms. If there is a mismatch in length between the two control arms, you might have an issue.
    – jwh20
    Mar 24, 2020 at 14:11

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