What the heck is the difference between a shock and a strut?

 

on thirdgens the fronts are called struts. the shocks are for the rears.

the struts mount differently to the car.




thats a front strut.






rear shock.

 

Struts and shocks do they same thing. They dampen spring vibrations. The difference in name comes from how it is mounted to the car. Stuts will take the place of a suspension part(in our case its the upper ball joint. Whereas the shocks just mount to the existing suspension. A good rule of thumb is that if you can take it out and still drive the car its a shock. Otherwise you have a strut.

 

the most common place to find a strut is a macpherson strut which the spring, strut, and bearing plate are all together and can be removed by 5 bolts. our cars have what they call a modified macpherson strut set up, each of those components are seperate on our cars

 

cool..thanks guys, that helps

stinking lingo:lala: