my '97 TA feels rough as a rocky road when hitting bumps or uneven patches of the road. drives fine and smooth and has no steering wheel vibration at all until the road becomes bumpy. do i need new shocks? i bought the car and it had lowering springs already installed. friends tell me a lowered vehicle always rides rough, but again, this car rides great until you go over a rough spot in the road or something. anyone got any clues?

 

so you're saying when the car is on flat smooth road and the suspension is working a small percentage of what it was designed for...it feels fine.

but when you get on rough road and the suspension has to actually function like it was ment to, and do the job its supposed to...it rides rough.

not a hard thing to imagine.
kindda like saying "the engine runs great, untill you start it"

initially i would say your shocks are done....but since you said it's lowered i'm tempted to say it is normal.
lowering springs are alot stiffer and have different rates depending on how much they are compressing (due to bumps or weight transfer). now this would probably be multiplied if the person who lowered it didn't replace the shocks, or if they used crappy shocks. for optimum performance, shocks need to be valved for the lower ride height. now this isn't absolutely neccessary.
a good set of bilstein shocks will probably help your situation

 

thanks for the reply. you hit the nail on the head with the description of the ride feel. i was going to replace the shocks with some top quality ones...but wanted to see what everyone on this board thought first. much appreciative of your reply!