when to replace struts?
 

I took my Monte into the shop this morning because my tires seem to be making a lot of noise (like I've got snow tires on) lately. This set of tires only has about 41K miles on them (they're not speed rated tires and have an 80,000 mile limited treadwear warranty) and I haven't noticed any unusual wear on them, except the front tires look like the tread is worn down a bit more than the rear ones. The guy at the shop is telling me that the noise is because the tires are "choppy" because the struts need to be replaced.... at $439/pair! Like I said, I don't really see any unusual wear on the tires, and don't feel any irregularities by running my hand over the tread, but the tires are definitely louder than they used to be. The ride of the car still seems OK to me though.

How long do struts normally last before they need to be replaced? Aside from irregular wear on the tires, how do you know when the struts are worn out?

what kind of tires? whats the max cold psi? and what are they set at now?

struts are recommended for change at 80,000km's or 50,000 miles. that is BS replace them when the ride is rough they start leaking or making noise or abnormal tire wear occurs. if your tires are noisy they probably didn't get rotated often enough. or they are goodyears lol.

let me know the questions i asked and i'll help ya out with some info

If you are using winter tires on dry pavement - that will cause more than average wear.

You can always tell your struts are bad when you go to the rear end or the front end of your car and push down on it and if it bounces more than twice its time for new struts.

If your running the Goodyear Assurance Triple tread tires on your Monte then they will be noisy.....more so as they wear down. I have them on my Monte and they are very good especially for snow traction but they are noisy.I just turn up the stereo if it bothers me while I'm driving!

I've got Yokohama Avid TRZ tires (225/55R 17 95T). Max cold PSI is 44, and they're all around 31-31.5 PSI cold right now (one was at 29 psi).

I tried pushing down on the front & rear of the car, and it doesn't seem to bounce excessively. I think the problem is that I haven't been rotating the tires enough recently. Like I said earlier, the front tires seem a little more worn down than the rears. The fronts are getting close to the level of the treadwear indicator bars.

AwesomeSS - These tires are all season tires. I've never used a separate set of winter tires on my Monte.

Heavy cornering, quick acceleration, quick deacceleration could all be the cause of the reason your front tires are worn more. When you corner you got all that weight on your front end pushing down on one side of the car, and when you corner those tires are holding back all that weight which means it will wear alot quicker. I've seen this in my 88' Mustang GT I took it for a cruise through the hills and when I got home I noticed excessive wear on the front tires.

If the max pressure is 44psi try them at 38-40 psi and see how they wear

The max pressure on the tire don't have anything to do with the psi that they should have. It is car specific. 30-33psi should be fine on a monte.

If your tires are choppy they could have broken belts, could be worn badly, not balanced, etc.

Also on front wheel drive cars the front tires wear faster than the rear ones. That is why you rotate them...

@ Crete

If you don't have certificate with your name on it hanging on a wall and years of post secondary education, and years of experience practicing as a professional, I would suggest you open up your mind a little and let someone who does give appropriate advice. If I followed that little placard on my
b-pillar my cars tires would have 29psi in them...give your head a shake even Michelin recommends 35 psi or higher. I suggest you keep a consumer based figure of 30-33psi and use that on your own car. It'll make people like me a lot of money throughout my career. And make sure to go and buy some goodyears for it while your at it because the internet surveys told you they were good tires...lmfao

dont look at the sidewall of the tire. There is no inflation pressure recommendation listed there, only a safety warning as to the maximum allowable inflation pressure that tire is rated for. That has nothing to do with what the best pressure is for that tire on your vehicle.

One thing that tells you that parts of your struts are going out obviously is obnoxious popping coming from them anytime the car moves. My car has 52k miles on it and the top mounts of the front struts are rusting so badly that it's totally messing up the struts. I kinda checked them out the other day when I had the wheels off the monte and yupp rust is most def getting the best of the strut framing.

&& bout that tire pressure feud going on up there, my max tire pressure is 44 & I have always been told by my dad (who fyi is a certified mechanic, has own several shops, etc, etc) that you don't wanna go any higher than 35 lbs to be safe. & I would never put more then that in my tires bcuz of the damaging things too much pressure in a system can do (thanks to all the dumb chemistry classes I've had to take to drill that into my mind)

is that popping a sure sign of them being bad? mine does that all the time but if I use WD40 enough it goes away.

That's what my dad said and he checked out all underneath and drove it to see where the noise is coming from. I don't think the struts inside the framing is all that bad but I most def gotta replace them before they rust completely off the car. & I painted the ring on my mounts black for car shows bcuz it was bright orange so I know for a fact that the mounts are rusting badly regardless lol and the bottom of the struts down by the brakes and underneath the springs are really rusty too

just to verify, on the top of the strut like under the rubber part, that's part of the strut right? because i was worried about that being my body sheet metal ha

Does anybody hear an air whooshing sound when you go over bumps? I did the bounce test, which the car didnt bounce more than once but i did hear a canister like air sound when i pushed down. Is that leak somewhere?

Yeah that middle screw is the very top of the strut...& the black ring with the red in the middle is also part of the strut. That black ring is the part that I was talking about is rusting really bad on my struts. The middle screw that helps hold the strut together is pretty rusted too. Those 3 screws around everything are what hold the strut to the car on the top side

http://www.motortopia.com/files/6259...4/P1010479.jpg

Yes, I get that all the time when I drive over speed bumps or other bumps in the road. It's really quick, though, not like the sound of letting air out of a tire. It's done that on my car since I bought it and it had 28K miles on it (it's now got about 83,600 miles).

I don't know if that's normal or not. Anybody else know? SpinEm90?

the sound you're hearing is probably the compression of the strut, it's normal, if you listen to cars going over a speed bump you'll hear it a lot

Just for the record I've been running 40psi in tires rated at maximum 44psi cold for about 11 years now and it makes most tires wear better, handle better, and they get better fuel economy. Not once has it ever caused a safety issue and has only been beneficial.
Right now my tires are 51psi max cold and they are currently at 42psi.

It's the same debat as nitrogen in the tires it will always be 50/50 split opinions. Just FYI the air your breathing right now is over 75% nitrogen. And to achieve near 100% in a tire you would need to pull a vacuum on the rim and tire after it's been mounted and refill the tire and purge repeatedly to have over 95% nitrogen filled tires. So you can all guess which 50 I'm with. It's all opinion and thinking, I just know the facts from experience and testing.