Mazda Repair: 95 MX6 strut replacement, goodyear dealer, steering axis inclination

Question
H Chris,
I recently replaced all four struts on my wife's pristine 95 MX6. The car has 145,000 miles on it and it didn't handle well at speed.
After replacement my wife told me the car seemed to have oversteer and teh wheel would not come back. This never happened before.
We took the car to be aligned at a reputible Goodyear dealer but were told by the mechanic that the source of oversteer was due to my not having replaced the strut pad on top of each strut.
When I reinstalled the struts I noticed that I could rotate the pad in a 360 degree circle and the bolts would always align with the bolt holes in the strut tower. However the spring retaining nut was in a different position with each turn, i.e. 12:00 or 3:00, or 6:00, or 9:00.
Is the source of the oversteer due to not replacing the strut pads or did I install the strut with the retaining nut in the wrong place?
Of everything I have read online, nothing mentions replacing the strut pads, which I have discovered are terribly expensive.
Thanks so much,
Paul in Chicago  

Answer
Hi Paul thanks for asking,
thats odd, if all parts where installed back in the same order there shouldnt be a problem like that, You will get a case of over streer when there is to much poistive caster.  Where the strut mounts bolt up are there oval mounting holes? Postive caster is where the bottom of the wheels are pointed to far forward. this should have been corrected by doing an allignment. tuning the top of the struts will not change caster so much it is more used for camber and steering axis inclination, it will change caster ever so slightly but not to the point where it will cause a steering condition like yours, If i where you i would check to see if you missed something, get back to me with more info
good luck
Chris P