live in rough part of town. just bought a used evo x with 17000 km on it and it bangs pretty hard over any line or pot hole in the road. is this normal or are shocks and struts already gone on it?

 

check your rear end links they might be loose.

 

i had the same issue, mine turned out to be a broken rear sway bar link. the bar sheared the threads off of the stud and took the nut off, so the link was just dangling and banging on everything.

 

Haven't had this experience with the evo but on past vehicles there have been a couple possible reasons.
Could be a ball joint, a sway bar end link or bushing, shock/strut etc... Any fluid leakage? Best bet is to lift that wheel off the ground by the frame and pull/push the tire around a bit and see if you get a clunk somewhere or obvious movement where there shouldn't be any. That might help narrow it down.

 

If you've been around and done some searching, then you know that a majority of front-end clunks on Evo Xs are due to the lousy upper front shock mounts.

 

check the shock mounts!! they might be loose!!
that is what happened to me last time, the shop didn't install them right.
so I just re-torqued the shock mounts, and all the noise went away.

 

My friend had the same issue and it turned out that his front sway bar bushings were actually worn out, check those!