Replacing struts

[gqstunning]

Hello, I was told recently by my mechanic that I need to replace all the struts on my 2004 MZ3GT. I tried the "search" button and found nothing. I was wondering when do I replace my struts and when I do replace them what brand should I get at what price? Keep in mind that I have my car is at 114000km and my car drives fine so far.

[froggy]

Let me try to help you out here. From a guy who's gone through a few struts, in his time driving. The reason that you feel your car is running fine is that the struts go gradually (usually, unless you bend them like I have a couple of times) and you've gotten used to how it feels now. The shock/strut's job is to dampen the spring, keeping it from bouncing up and down. A test that you can do is do bounce your car. Push down on the car and watch it come back up, if it comes up and stops right away your shocks are probably ok. If it wobbles a bit, or comes back down again and then up you've got 1 or more bad shocks do the same for the back. If you're still not sure you can also visually inspect them for leaks/damage. you might have to move the dust shield, have some plastic ties ready to reattach them after. With 114,000k driving in Toronto speed bumps and potholes I'd be thinking your mechanic is probably right. You always want to replace them in pairs per axle. so if you've got 1 bad front and 1 bad right you might as well have 4 bad shocks. As for price it all depends on what you want, and if you're going to keep the car for a while, you could go with oem, monroe, bilstien, but you're looking at about $400- $500 installed per axle depending on the shocks you get

[gqstunning]

Thanx, one more question. Should I replace the springs, and shocks at the same time since I have to re-align the wheels after those repairs?

[Donutz]

Do you want to lower your car? If so I would suggest mazdaspeed accessory struts and prokit or mazdaspeed accessory springs. You can get the struts from Flipdady (check out the Current Deals section). Look around the marketplace forum to find springs. If you can hold out long enough you can find prokits for under $300.

[froggy]

Do you want to lower your car? .

That's the key question, and even if you don't want to lower it you can get new springs at the same ride height that are a bit stiffer, which can help your handling. Although when I broke my first strut I didn't change the spring that was with 120,000 km and about 3 months later the spring went, so it might be good insurance to do it all at once, and you might get a deal on a package.

[Hives]

Damn, thats a lot of KM in such a short time period lolll

[bhrm]

Damn, thats a lot of KM in such a short time period lolll

That's average. 5 years at 20k km per year.

I have 59k km in 1.5 years. I'll get to 100k km by next year.

[cooperalp]

When I got my 2004 gt it had 120k, now it has around 150k. Ever since I got the car, I found the front suspension noisier than usual. I was driving a 2000 hyundai accent before and it was way quiet than my mazda.

After I read couple of threads on this forum, I concluded that my front struts are shut. I got the struts from Joe and replaced them last week. With the struts I also replaced both stabilizers and tie rods. All pieces + labor + alignment + taxes cost me about $600. Dealer in Montreal gave me a quotation of $1000 labor included only for the struts.

It made a huge difference, I would say about 90% of the noise is gone. Every once in a while when I go over big bumps I hear some noises but I don't care anymore, I guess thats the way it is with these cars.

[notoriousb]

koni yellow struts have lifetime warranty

get those!

[Hives]

Lower your car too!