rear shock absorber replacement

[finest1]

hi all

My recent MOT threw up an advisory:

"shock absorbers has light misting of oil offside rear"

when sourcing replacement, do i need to change the spring/coil? as one that i've seen just show the strut

is it best to get both rears done, or could you just do one?

many thanks

 

Finest1

 

 

[Mr Vlad]

Hi Rishi. My car was in the same predicament as yours. Lexus wouldn't MOT it as they'd fail it and they didn't want that. They quoted me £600. Ouch I thought. My local Halfords did it for I think £560 after a little haggle plus they threw in a free MOT. ALWAYS change shock absorbers as a pair just like brake discs/pads.

[finest1]

ok, thanks, i thought so. in my case it was advisory, but i'm going to get them changed

 

thanks

[Linas.P]

2 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

Hi Rishi. My car was in the same predicament as yours. Lexus wouldn't MOT it as they'd fail it and they didn't want that. They quoted me £600. Ouch I thought. My local halfords did it for I think £560 after a little haggle plus they threw in a free MOT. ALWAYS change shock absorbers as a pair just like brake discs/pads.

You serious allowed those **** to touch your car to save ~£40? Seems irrational for me... I would not be surprised if you find they made more damage to the car than they fixed. Any experience I had with halfraus was absolutely shocking and their understanding about cars is literally criminal. 

3 hours ago, finest1 said:

is it best to get both rears done, or could you just do one?

Shock absorbers should always be done in pairs, replacing springs are not necessary, but if you get unit with spring already installed, then it is simply more convent to swap entire thing.

[Mr Vlad]

Linas. There are Halfords there are utter cowboys and there are those like my local one run by car enthusiasts. Their own personal cars are all old super mini cars and modified tastefully. Just coz the Halfords you've been to have ripped you off DONT slag them ALL down coz you're bang out of order. As for Kwikfit. There's only one I trust and that's in Leeds near the Lexus dealer.

Oh and as for my local Halfords doing my rear shockers. I trust them more than Lexus. It's local, walking distance, I know the guys, they like my car and treat it as their own, they've done freebies for me.

Yes I'm lucky to have a trusted garage near me. Pity it's not the same for everyone which it really needs to be.

[CypressPhil]

Should always be changed in pairs. Depending on the type of roads and mileage you do, I wouldn’t necessarily rush to have it done. I had an IS200 Sport that had the same advisory for a couple of years and the main dealer wasn’t too concerned about it. No issues with handling or uneven tyre wear, so I let it be. I would caveat that with I was only doing about 3k a year on mostly city driving though!

[Linas.P]

4 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

Linas. There are Halfords there are utter cowboys and there are those like my local one run by car enthusiasts. Their own personal cars are all old super mini cars and modified tastefully. Just coz the Halfords you've been to have ripped you off DONT slag them ALL down coz you're bang out of order. As for Kwikfit. There's only one I trust and that's in Leeds near the Lexus dealer.

Oh and as for my local halfords doing my rear shockers. I trust them more than Lexus. It's local, walking distance, I know the guys, they like my car and treat it as their own, they've done freebies for me.

Yes I'm lucky to have a trusted garage near me. Pity it's not the same for everyone which it really needs to be.

Yes that is fair enough, now I remember you mentioned they were ex-BMW dealer and they are very good, but I think then it is worth mentioning it is "local garage your trust" rather than "halfords", because that implies that Halfords as a brand is trustworthy, which it is not - 9 out of 10 Halfords quality if just horrible and rather than fixing cars they damage them and try then up-sell you for thing you don't need. 

4 hours ago, CypressPhil said:

Should always be changed in pairs. Depending on the type of roads and mileage you do, I wouldn’t necessarily rush to have it done. I had an IS200 Sport that had the same advisory for a couple of years and the main dealer wasn’t too concerned about it. No issues with handling or uneven tyre wear, so I let it be. I would caveat that with I was only doing about 3k a year on mostly city driving though!

Indeed. Worth noting that sometimes advisory for leaking shocks doesn't even mean they are leaking. On my old IS250 which had nearly 200k miles, I once got advisory for "oil misting on the shock" in one MOT. When I started investigating I realised I was working on brakes and used some WD on some stuck bolts, sprayed a little bit on shocks and MOT noted that as advisory. 

[ahmed-abrar]

On 1/23/2022 at 3:51 PM, finest1 said:

hi all

My recent MOT threw up an advisory:

"shock absorbers has light misting of oil offside rear"

when sourcing replacement, do i need to change the spring/coil? as one that i've seen just show the strut

is it best to get both rears done, or could you just do one?

many thanks

 

Finest1

 

 

always change in pairs regardless otherwise potential for the car to become unbalanced especially during spirited driving

[finest1]

On 1/24/2022 at 12:41 AM, Linas.P said:

Yes that is fair enough, now I remember you mentioned they were ex-BMW dealer and they are very good, but I think then it is worth mentioning it is "local garage your trust" rather than "halfords", because that implies that Halfords as a brand is trustworthy, which it is not - 9 out of 10 Halfords quality if just horrible and rather than fixing cars they damage them and try then up-sell you for thing you don't need. 

Indeed. Worth noting that sometimes advisory for leaking shocks doesn't even mean they are leaking. On my old IS250 which had nearly 200k miles, I once got advisory for "oil misting on the shock" in one MOT. When I started investigating I realised I was working on brakes and used some WD on some stuck bolts, sprayed a little bit on shocks and MOT noted that as advisory. 

you make a fair point. the day before MOT, i got all brakes and brake discs changed. for the rear, i remember them spraying WD40 or equivalent to loosen the bolts when working on the rear. is there a way i can check this myself, however, its already on the advisory

[Linas.P]

Yes - you can take of the wheel and look at the shock absorber. If it has just drops of oil on random places, or some misting I would say that is from brake job, if the actual shock is leaking then you will see oil around seams and places where different moving parts are meeting. 

Although note - you need to make sure leak is coming from the shock itself, because when I checked mine it was literally like last picture on the right, but it was just missed spray from the WD. So what you can do - wipe the shock absorber, drive for you few days and see if there are new runs/leaks coming out.