Hello All,

It's a 2012 GC with 105K, all city driving, slamming potholes and such. I would like to change the front struts soon before the van falls apart. They felt like they needed changed about 10-15k ago. I'm going to do this in my driveway, then pay someone to do an alignment. Question is, do you think new springs offer a real advantage right away in terms of driving comfort/performance, or in planning to keep this van another 100K, should I just change the springs now? The van doesn't sag, or bounce, it just doesn't take bumps nearly as well as it used to.

Any thought or comments would be appreciated.

thank you.

 

I say do it. You’ll save a lot of time, hassle and frustration by installing a strut assembly as opposed to just changing the strut now and then changing the springs down the road. You’d actually be doing twice the work - swapping the springs to another set of struts now and then changing them out again in the future. Whether you’re changing just the strut or the spring, both require removal of the assembly. Plus you’ll have to have it aligned again, so you’ll be paying for that twice too.

Also I have no faith in spring compressors at all. At work we have a wall mounted compressor with a 1” jack screw to compress the springs and it still makes me nervous trying to change them because it seems so unstable.

Make it a quick and easy job that you only have to do once - the assemblies are worth the extra in my opinion.

 

+1
all springs sag over time.
good spring compressors are $1000. cheap units will slip. Save yourself the hassle and install quick struts.

 

Install Monroe quick struts and avoid KYB. The KYB's I put on my gen 4 were noisy when temps got below freezing. I've had much better luck with Monroe's. Very easy job to just swap out the whole assembly. The toughest part is getting the rusty nuts off the linkage.

 

That’s another good point - you may want to consider sway bar links while you’re at it. My experience is the old ones rarely tighten up correctly and you end up with a rattling noise. They can appear tight but they aren’t and it can take a few weeks of tightening, driving, tightening again before they’re fully snugged up.

 

Longer answer: The right front strut in my 1999 Voyager literally fell apart three weeks ago. I managed to nurse it home (half a mile), then proceeded to change out both front struts in my driveway following instructions from a (very good) YouTube video series. Since my local auto parts store didn't have any full loaded strut assemblies readily available, I ended up changing them out piece by piece and reusing the old springs. I used a loaner spring compressor from the auto parts shop. While the video series said I could re-use the cap and cushion and other parts, they had deteriorated and I ended up replacing everything except the springs.

I ended up spending as much as I would have on complete loaded strut assemblies, had they been in stock (I didn't have the luxury of time to wait for a special order). And few things have made me as nervous as torquing down on that cheap spring compressor, a few turns at a time, squeezing it down to the point where I could get it out of or into the assembly. The good news is that the job was done, and done properly, with everything torqued to manufacturer's specs and a front end alignment performed the next day. But, if I ever have to do it again...loaded strut assemblies all the way!

Video Link: