I remember reading somewhere that if you take the suspension out and take the springs off, you can test to see if the shock is still good. If you push it in and it recoils back out, then you're in business, but if it stays down then its shot.

I just wanted to verify this with somebody. I'm trying to replace my suspension at 155k and I believe that all of mine were like this, I went to get a friends and two of his four were like this also so I wanted to make sure I'm not buying stuff that won't change my car for the better.

 

I'm not sure about that technique but others are just to check to see if the oil is leaking...the strut would be a lil damp and dirt collected to it. Also bouncing on the corner and see how it recoils back, if it keeps going up and down they're shot.

 

It doesn't bounce in the rear, but it also doesn't really move when I bounce it, like its just the springs and nothing else.

I've tried bouncing the whole car and it doesn't really bounce up and down, I'd think that it would be very hard to notice the bouncing on a car like this, because even on the springs it would just go up or down once or twice and then stop.

 

Probably the only way to tell on the SC is to take the shock off and feel how stiff it is (it should be relatively hard to push down). Also the more air you hear the worse condition its in.

 

on mine you can feel the bumps, and hear the "clunk"