 Earl Glant, Township Chevrolet, shot foreman here. We're doing a brief rundown on shocks and struts, kind of what the difference is and how important they are to the way your vehicle handles and drives and how it helps the safety of your car. So shocks and struts are basically, they do the same job and they're very similar. This car here is a strut assembly. You can tell that because you've got the strut and then the spring is over top of it. If this was a shock, it would just be the shock itself. The spring would be off to the side, it'd be somewhere else or it'd be a torsion bar set up or something, there'd be something other than the spring wrapped around it. So it would just be the strut itself. Most front wheel drive cars, or a lot of them are this style in the front and then you've got a shock in the rear. So there is a recommendation for getting them changed because most of them are oil filled and that oil after over time will break down. There's also seals to keep the oil in, they can leak and that's what we look at and that's basically what the government wants us to look at when we're doing a safety inspection for motor vehicle. They're concerned about to make sure the shock itself, the body is in good shape, it's not rusted, where it mounts are good because there's usually a rubber mount in the bottom, rubber on the top. In this case, there would also, because it's a strut, there'd be a bearing plate in the top so when you turn your wheels back and forth that whole unit can turn. So those things we look at but the shock or the strut itself, the actual body, they're most concerned about is the seal, which is great because if you've got one that's blown, you potentially, you've got no, it's not doing its job at all, it's not dampening at all the spring, which is what it's there for. If you didn't have any shocks in your vehicle only springs when you get it down the road, the car would just continuously bounce down the road. So what it is is there's oil, there's usually two, I guess reservoirs or chambers and there's a certain size hole, it's kind of simplified but there's a certain size orifice or hole in between the two chambers and as the shock body's being pushed down, it's pushing the oil in from one side to the other and depending on how big the valves are and how thick the oil is depends on how much it dampens. So obviously if the seal's gone, there's no oil in there, it's just air in there, it's able to move free and it's not doing its job at all. But over time it can break down so just because your seal isn't ruptured or leaking doesn't necessarily mean that your shock is performing like it should be. I've been to a few courses on shocks and struts and one thing they bring up is what they call like a safety triangle. So it's steering stability and braking. So those are the three main things that struts will and shocks will affect the most. Obviously stability when you're driving on the road, if you're going around corners and the vehicle's shifting from side to side, if you've got shocks or struts that are worn out, you're gonna have that car die from one side to the other. Braking, especially with a front wheel drive car, you wanna kind of maintain that flat plane on your vehicle when it tries to break. You don't want it to nose dive or else you've got some braking issues and your braking distance will increase dramatically if you've got shocks and struts that are worn out. And then steering, obviously. The most, one of the most important features of your vehicle is your tires. It's the only thing that contacts the car to the road you're driving on. The shocks job and the struts job is to maintain contact as often as it can. So when you're hitting bumps down the road or potholes and you're getting some jounce or rebound from that tire, the tire, if there was no shock or strut there or wasn't doing its job properly, the tire would actually lift off the ground and that's what gives you that instability. So if anyone's ever drove something with a bad shock or strut and you're taking a corner, sometimes you get that chatter or that bounce. Which is another thing too, if you've got a bad shock or strut, that chatter or bounce that's constantly happening is you're down on the road. Some people you see some go on the road and front of you and their tires just going up and down like crazy. That's a good sign that the shock or the strut is bad or broken. And that beating constantly of the tire on the pavement will actually cause flat spots in your tire. So then you've got a tire that's wearing it quicker than it should be. Some of the myths of shocks and struts are unless you get into some specialty things where you're dealing with an airbag or you're dealing with air shocks, they won't affect the ride height of your vehicle. If you notice that your vehicle's squatting or leaning to one side, just sitting still in a flat spot, it's most likely not your shocks and your struts. You could have a mount issue possibly or where it mounts to the body is getting, starting to flex or it's rusted out. Obviously that could do it. But the actual, if the components where it's fast and two are good, you can drain all the oil out of the shock and it won't affect ride height. That's strictly your springs that are controlling that. So even the aftermarket on their shocks and struts, they recommend 80,000 kilometers. So each manufacturer has its own. We could definitely fill in on what we recommend here. It's like I said, safety inspection. We do look at things, but it's not as in depth as it really needs to be. So it's more of a maintenance item that you should be getting done to your vehicle after so many kilometers. 60, 80,000 kilometers seems to be the norm. Some stretch out as far as 100,000, but you're dramatically dropping your control and stability of your vehicle when you let it go that long. So yeah, with those things, you're gonna have better tire wear. You're gonna have a better handling vehicle, better braking vehicle. So shocks and struts are kind of not given the appreciation they deserve. And it's one thing we kind of forget about. It's like if it's going down the road and it's not making any noise or it's clunking or banging or I took it through my safety inspection and they say it's fine. Well, then it must be good, but that's not the case. So one little tip I guess you guys can do to check to see if your struts, if you're wanting to yourself, geez, I wonder how good my shocks and my struts are. One tip that you can do yourself or thing you can do in your driveway is you can actually bounce your car up and down on each corner. And when you stop, when you depress the suspension, you let it go and the vehicle should rise once, come down and level. So if it continues to do this kind of just bounce and it kind of peders off, chances are you get a strut or a shock problem. And you can actually go to each corner. If you have the right front that's bad and the left front's not, you'll actually see the difference between the two. So just something you can check yourself. And if you see that, then chances are either A, your seal, like we were talking about earlier is blown out and you've gotten a oil or the viscosity oil because obviously with that shock and strut moving down so often, it's gonna generate heat and heat breaks down fluid oil just like anything else in engine or transmission. So yeah, anyway, that's kind of a quick breakdown on shocks and struts. If you think yours needs to be changed or you want them checked out or you notice your car's not handling like it used to or breaking like it used to, it's possible shocks and struts could be your problem. And if that's the case, bring it on down to us and we'd love to see you and we'll see if we can get you fixed up.