Worn Struts - Symptoms ?

How do you know when your front struts are worn out ?

I hear a groaning / squeaking when I hit bumps or bumpy turns.

If I push down on the fender no groaning and the car stops moving up and
down in one or two jumps.

Are my struts worn or do I need to lube something ?

Never have changed struts since I bought The Phoenix used 4-5 years ago.

I know squat about struts and connections with steering, etc.

DoctorBill

should bounce once at the most, try one of your other cars and see how it does

Do they look like they've been leaking ? If so they are probably shot. Ken...

Weather has been wet - I will look underneath when I can get at it.

The Phoenix drives fine, no bouncy, bouncy - just croaking and groaning
on bumpy curves. Probably something needs greasing....?

DoctorBill

Creaking and groaning is more likely control arm bushings, but if your car has 100K miles on it, or is ten years old, your struts are bad.

It is old and I have no idea if the struts were ever changed.

No noise if I bounce the front end up and down by pushing on the bumper.

Are the struts hard to change ? About $120 for both of them together.

Do I need a spring compressor to do it ?

DoctorBill

you will need a strut spring compressor, think you can rent them from shucks, also you can buy struts off e-bay for $75 or under including shipping

TireRack has KYB's for $40 each, a much better shock than anything you're going to find locally. I'd do all four or nothing. Allow extra time because you'll almost certainly find other things wrong once you get the strut off.

You may also want to get new coil springs. I put new struts on my metro and the passenger side front strut blew out quickly due to bad coil springs.

Springs are forever, sounds like someone was trying to explain their way out of a defective strut.

Thats what I thought until it did it again. Got springs for the front and it worked fine.