This is going to sound like a stupid question, (and I'm convinced it is), but when my car was at the dealer, they said that they found my front left strut to be on the right side and my front right to be on the left. WTF? Does that even matter? They were gonna charge me $88 to fix it, but I passed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only difference in struts is front and rear, not left and right.

 

I don't think that the abs brackets will fit onto the shock body, but the actual shock body/springs will fit and work, I believe.

 

The way that the brake line bolts to the strut housing is different left to right.

 

so is this a bad/detrimental thing?

 

Look at your brake hoses to make sure that they do not rub or catch on anything. It could be very detrimental if you wore a hole in a brake hose.

 

If the brake hoses aren't catching on anything or rubbing, do I need to worry? What will happen if there's a hole in the brake hoses?


[Modified by alfaaay, 3:50 AM 3/30/2003]

 

no need to worry if they are fine. If there is a hole in the brake line, stopping will be difficult due to lack of hydraulic fluid.

 

Not only rubbing, but maybe some bad combination of full steering & suspension extension might pull the hose apart. That might influence your braking ability, too.

 

...so, am I'm okay as long as nothing rubs or catches? I'll switch the struts if needed, but I'd rather not mess with it because I'm not familiar with the process.

 

Let me add to this dumb question..

Are there left and right front springs?
I ask this because im putting springs on my oem shocks..and I see that the shocks have L and R imprinted in them.

 

I'm pretty sure there aren't left and right springs, but I could be wrong. Turns out I was wrong about the struts... , speakin' which, could someone answer my question about the brake hoses?

 

Springs are same.

Left strut being on the right side, dunno how you can do that, brake lines would be streched far. I tried and lil notch where the strut fits in the fork lined up but the brake lines were way off.

I wouldn't worry about it. I double check the shocks yourself, i wouldn't trust the dealership.

 

The hoses have to have enough length, and be held in their brackets the right way. You don't just need enough hose to reach the fittings, it also has to be OK at every possible combination of steering & suspension travel. Otherwise, some lucky day you're going to have the steering all the way over when you hit a bump, then the hose pulls apart because the bracket is backwards. Then suddenly you have no brakes.

Like somebody said, the struts have L & R stamped on them. You can look for yourself, you don't have to take the dealer's word for it.

 

I dunno how it got put together w/o the notch fitting in. There is a HUGE gap that any competant mechanic should see as a problem already.

One more thing. How are the spring caps on top? These are angled to fit in a certain way. If you swap these for L/R or even put in 180 degrees backwards, you will have BAD camber and the shock will not travel in the proper angle, thus causing premature shock wear.

Thanks,

 

BTW, $88 for a dealer to do the swap L/R is not much. You could spend about 1.5 hours doing it yourself. You should be able to use hand tools, unless whoever put it together used power tools and locked the whole thing up.

 

I've never heard of this. All the caps I've seen look flat not angled.

 

Wow, this is seeming like it could be a serious issue, but it's also sounding more impossible that my struts are mixed up...I wouldn't be able to check them until this weekend though. In the mean time, does anyone have a link to a how-to for taking out the suspension housing? Also, by bad camber, how bad? I've got negative camber but I assumed and still think it's because of my car's lowered state.