Celica Forums General Discussion Engine and Performance Rear end wants to come out from under me

Hello friends. I recently purchased a 2000 Celica GT (Automatic) in fair to poor condition as a project for me and my son to work on. Hey, it runs and the price was below the low end of book for "fair" condition. Anyway - I was able to drive it home without any significant issues but one thing I noticed is that especially when going around left hand curves sometimes if feels like the rear end is getting out from under me. Imagine if you had a big tank of water in the trunk and when you went around a curve all of the inertia and water would try to pull the back end to the right. That's what it feels like. It doesn't seem to happen when I'm turning right. It can happen at relatively low speeds or moderate speeds (I drove it somewhat hard in the test drive). I tried to do some hard back and forth turns (zig zag) on an open road and didn't notice it in that case, just around moderately sharp left hand road turns. There is some general "clunkiness" as in suspension sounds coming from the back end. Before I get into ripping off the tires and getting dirty are there any suggestions that this description points to? I'm certainly considering replacing all of the bushings and related hardware and perhaps the struts or the entire strut/coil component. Thoughts welcome!

TIA!

Hows tour alignment? Wheels are balanced? Is your suspension squishy or tight?

Thanks for the quick reply. I put the rear up on a jack last night and pulled the tires to get a better look. Didn't see anything that screamed "this is not right" - which is to say that nothing was obviously broken, unbolted, etc.

TLDR

I would say it feels squishy in the rear.

Longer explanation.

As for the suspension. I did the good old push test on the middle and each side. It certainly have give under my weight and bounced back like it has some spring. I wasn't able to bottom it out (I'm not a light guy). When driving it feels a lot like the old Mazda MX3 I had years ago - which is to say these cars weren't exactly meant for road comfort. I can feel every bump. Then again I can feel most bumps in my Yaris, really only my wifes Sienna seems to float across the road, but I digress.

The rear struts are pretty rusted and there is no boot - well, there is a remnant of a boot from some long lost age, like perhaps around the industrial revolution. Bushings certainly look like they could use replacing on all the linkages. Springs....well they are shaped correctly, how the heck am I supposed to know by looking at those if they are okay anyway. Probably need replaced if I had to guess - I would say that all the parts I'm looking at are original and received no maintenance from day one.