hey guys, does anyone know the general life span of oem struts?
see, i had a brake inspection done over at belle tire, and they said tht i ws running on factory struts. i asked them if the struts were just oem replacement and he said "no i can see the gm stiker ont the strut, so these are the ones that the car was built with."
and this was his justification for telling me that i should let them put new struts on my car.
so apparently i have been riding on factory struts for 117k mi, and they havent blown yet.
just kinda curious to see if the guy was tryin to feed me some bull.
i have a 150xxx on mine and there fine. as long as there not bouncing hardcore when you go over a bump your good. he wants some greens.
maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow....... but some day
Factory GM struts suck!!!! I have taken many off with under 40k and compressed them and the fluid comes out. After about 70k I would be loking for new ones.
FU Tuning
Depends what state you live in. Some states have worse roads than others.
- 2004 Cavalier - 124k, owned since new
Rob S wrote:Depends what state you live in. Some states have worse roads than others.
New Jersey is a strut... killer...
My Fquick Page
My stockers rode well enough til I lowered at 20,000 kms... but the struts were already shot at that point. No rebound... damn things sunk into the casing and wouldn't come back up. I just didn't notice because the stock springs suck anyway....
Depends on how hard you push the car.
Mine still rode fine when I switched to the Koni setup I have now, but the struts themselves were basically shot at 69k miles. They were probably like that for a while.
Really as long as you're not bouncing uncontrollably you're at least safe, but at the mileage you have, if you replaced them even with OEM spec, you'd probably be pleasantly surprised.
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Sleeper style, they don't see it coming that way.
John Lenko wrote:My stockers rode well enough til I lowered at 20,000 kms... but the struts were already shot at that point. No rebound... damn things sunk into the casing and wouldn't come back up. I just didn't notice because the stock springs suck anyway....
Depends on how hard you push the car.
are OE struts Gas filled? if not then they might not rebound on their own.
i recommend that oe strut be replaced at 60,000 no matter what car it is. Newer struts are now even valved to where the more it bumps the stiffer it gets..so doing a bounce test is not always accurate anymore either
Yeah, the stock struts are gas charged... Boges & Sachs (same OEM as VW, I think?)
...j
