Shocktober in Albuquerque: How to Tell When Your Shocks and Struts Are Worn Out

Shocks and struts do not fail on a Tuesday. They fade, a little at a time, over tens of thousands of miles, and your body adjusts to the ride as it gets worse. That is why most drivers in Albuquerque are riding on worn ride control without knowing it, and why October, when NAPA AutoCare Centers put a spotlight on shocks and struts, is a good month to find out where yours stand before the first icy morning on Tramway.

• Worn shocks and struts lengthen stopping distance, scallop your tires, and overload every other part of the suspension
• Albuquerque’s patched pavement, washboard dirt roads, and speed humps wear ride control faster than the national average mileage suggests
• A ride control inspection takes minutes, and replacing worn units before winter restores braking, steering, and tire life all at once

What Shocks and Struts Actually Do

Your springs hold the vehicle up. Your shocks and struts control what the springs do next. Every time a tire hits a bump, the spring compresses and then wants to rebound, and without something to damp that motion the tire would keep bouncing down the road, touching pavement only part of the time. A shock absorber is a hydraulic piston that converts that bouncing energy into heat. A strut does the same job but also serves as a structural part of the suspension, carrying the spring and locating the wheel, which is why a strut job usually involves an alignment afterward.

The part that matters for safety is tire contact. Braking, steering, and traction control all assume the tire is pressed firmly against the road. When damping fades, the tire spends more of its time unweighted. Testing by ride control manufacturers has shown that badly worn shocks can add several car lengths to a panic stop from highway speed. Your anti-lock brakes cannot grip pavement the tire is not touching.

Why Albuquerque Is Hard on Ride Control

The common guideline is to have shocks and struts inspected at 50,000 miles. Around here, that number is optimistic. Albuquerque’s streets are a patchwork of utility cuts, frost-heaved seams, and chip seal, and the arterials that carry most of the traffic, Montgomery, Coors, Central, and Paseo del Norte, have stretches that pound a suspension on every commute. Add the washboard dirt roads in the East Mountains and Rio Rancho, the speed humps in every school zone, and the arroyo dips that drop a vehicle onto its bump stops, and a set of shocks takes far more cycles per mile than it would in a flat Midwestern city.

Heat is the other factor. A shock turns motion into heat, and it sheds that heat into the air around it. On a July afternoon when the pavement reads 140 degrees, the fluid inside runs hotter, the seals age faster, and the gas charge that keeps the fluid from foaming bleeds off sooner. By the time the first freeze arrives in late October, a shock that was marginal in spring may be finished, and cold pavement is exactly where you want full tire contact.

Warning Signs You Can Check Yourself

You do not need a lift to catch the obvious cases. Walk around the vehicle and look at each tire. Scalloped or cupped wear, a pattern of alternating high and low patches around the tread, is the classic signature of a shock that is letting the tire hop. Look up behind each wheel at the shock or strut body. A light film of dust is normal. Wet, oily streaks running down the housing mean the seal has let go and the unit is losing its fluid.

• The vehicle nose dives when you brake, or squats hard when you accelerate
• The rear end sways or wanders after a lane change, or the whole vehicle leans more in corners than it used to
• You feel every expansion joint on I-40 through the seat, or the steering wheel shimmies after a bump
• A clunk or knock from one corner over speed humps, which often means a worn strut mount or bearing
• The old bounce test: push down hard on one corner and let go. More than one full rebound means damping is gone

The trouble is that none of these show up all at once. A vehicle that has lost 40 percent of its damping still feels like the same vehicle to the person who drives it every day. The driver who notices is usually the one who borrows a friend’s car and realizes how much tighter it feels.

What Worn Shocks Cost You Beyond the Ride

Ride control is the part of the suspension that protects everything else. When shocks stop damping, the springs cycle farther and faster, ball joints and tie rod ends take impacts they were never meant to absorb, and sway bar links loosen up. The tires pay first. Cupped wear cannot be corrected by rotation, and a set of tires that should have lasted 60,000 miles can be ready for replacement at 35,000. Put a new set of tires on worn shocks and you will cup those too.

Braking is the cost that matters most. If your stopping distance from 60 miles per hour grows by even ten feet, that is the difference between a close call and a claim on Coors at rush hour. Replacing shocks and struts does not add anything to the vehicle. It gives back what the vehicle had when it was new: full tire contact, predictable steering, and brakes that work the way the engineers intended.

What a Ride Control Service Involves

An inspection starts with the tire wear and a visual check of each unit for leaks, then a look at the mounts, bushings, and bump stops. If replacement is called for, shocks are usually a straightforward swap. Struts are more involved because the spring is under load, and the cleanest approach on most vehicles is a complete strut assembly, which replaces the strut, spring, mount, and bearing as one preassembled unit. That avoids reusing a tired spring and a mount that is probably the source of that clunk, and it gets the vehicle back on the road faster. Because the strut sets the wheel position, an alignment follows, which is a good time to correct any wear the old parts caused.

Shocks and struts should be replaced in pairs, both fronts or both rears, so the vehicle damps evenly side to side. The parts we install are NAPA ride control, and the work is backed by our NAPA AutoCare Gold 36-month, 36,000-mile nationwide warranty.

October is Shocktober at NAPA AutoCare Centers, running October 1 through 31, and Advantage is a Gold Certified one. The promotion features three ride control lines: NAPA OESpectrum shocks, NAPA Quick-Strut complete strut assemblies, and Rancho shocks and struts. If your inspection says it is time, this is the month to do it.

Find Out Before Winter Does

If your vehicle has 50,000 miles or more on its original shocks and struts, or you recognized more than one sign on the list above, put a ride control inspection on the calendar this month. We will show you the tire wear and the units themselves and tell you plainly whether they are fine, marginal, or done. Call (505) 298-4996 to schedule.

Advantage Automotive
511 Paisano St. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87123
(505) 298-4996