Well, when you add New York City to the equation of snow and cold I'll say, sure, I'm a weenie!

When I spoke to the mech. he was actually happy that I had the parts! Recently replaced the shocks with Bilstiens and got a look around underneath- at some point in teh car's history urethane bushings were installed in some places, but looked like maybe just in the easier-to-get-at points. The bushings in the a-arms look like they need doing, so I'm going to take the set of new ones along and have them do those while they're in there, and the tie rod ends if they can get to them. Hoping all this will improve the handling over the terrible NYC roads!