With 57K your bushing as you've stated should be fine. Have you had an alignment done?

As far as the spring pad spacers I'm not sure but I believe the W124's (excluding the 500's) had 4 bump front pads and 3 bump rear pads as standard. As someone mentioned each bump does adjust the suspension up or down about 1/2". I changed mine from 3 bump front / 2 bump rear to 2 Bump Front / 1 Bump rear and lowered the car between 3/8" to 1/2". It did not affect my handling at all and I would say it actually improved the stability of the car.

Check the aligment.........

__________________
Afshin

Current:
02 C32 AMG

Previous:
92 500E
84 190E 2.3 5 Spd