I am helping a friend with his 1995 M3, he has a used front strut that he would like to use on his car to replace a damaged one. When we push on the shock/dampener cartridge by hand (no spring installed), it goes down with "some" effort but not a lot and comes back up by itself. Is that normal? It is not leaking. Is there a better way to test the shock/dampener cartridge? I know it would be best to just replace the cartridge. Thanks.
Tom L.
That sounds relatively normal, but it's really the impact frequency (moving the damper rod up and down rapidly, like on a bumpy road) and not a single push that reveals damper wear. For obvious reasons it's difficult to test for that.
Who makes the unit? If it's single-tube aftermarket, e.g. Bilstein, it's probably okay as long as it's not leaking and the rod seal looks intact. I would be leery of using a double-tube (e.g. OEM Sachs) for anything longer than a brief temporary period.
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