Took my car in for alignment the other day, they told me my struts/shocks are shot. A few questions:

How can I tell if they're full of it?
If I do end up getting new strut/shock assemblies, are they easy to do yourself or will it be a shop job?
What should I expect to pay? Where is a good place to get them? If I'm going to be putting new ones on I had thought about getting performance parts. Is it worth it for my DD and not a track car? Or should i just go the economy route? My goal is a peppy fun DD that will last me a while.

Thanks for the insight this group is awesome.

 

Typically you can feel and hear your car bottoming out in the wheel well areas when you go through dips. Is your Monte's stance sagging on a corner? You can also lean and push on the car, if it bounces up and down easily a strut or spring is worn or soft. Look for oil leaking down the side of a strut. The mounts can also go bad and if you have the original factory struts and mounts with a high mileage vehicle over 100,000 miles I bet yours are getting close to requiring replacement.

If you buy the pre-loaded struts / spring combo (already assembled spring / shock? unit from like Autozone etc. you can put those on yourself fairly easily averaging about 30 minutes a wheel. Watch a You Tube video about GM cars or even a Monte if it's there and you will understand more they are actually pretty simple to do. Guess your budget will determine the quality level of the ones you buy, probably only about 3 levels from those retail stores.

If the ones you purchase (usually performance ones) are not pre-assembled I would advise taking them to a mechanic to have them assembled and installed as the springs become quite dangerous during the compression and attaching to the strut phase unless you have the right tools.

New strut mounts are pretty cheap to and easy to do. The old ones rubber will harden over time and new struts could stress out the old rubber with all the increased pressure and then you will have a rattle again and are taking the struts back off. You will still need to get your 4 wheel alignment done after the new struts are installed.

Good luck you can do it, and I bet you can get all 4 preloaded struts for $75 ea. or less and save yourself a fair amount on labor costs.

 

Thanks for the detailed post-so helpful! Sounds like I'm going preloaded struts. So you think I can do ALL 4 for $75 total? Or apiece? Would something I got from autozone(or oreillys-I tend to like them better) be a good one or would I be better off someplace online?

Also, do I need to do all 4 at once, or can I do front then back as funds allow?

Edit-just saw you said $75 ea.

 

Your fronts are going to be slightly more important, as those will be used a bit more. You can do the separate, just realize you will have to get an alignment with the front ones as well.

You should try to get some Monroe struts and springs, they'll probably be your best option for stock replacements.