The other night I had the front of my car jacked up while I was changing my oil, (this next part may seem irrelevant but wait). When I went to start up my car oil sprayed out from the filter, turns out the old filter gasket stayed on so of course no seal, and oil sprayed everywhere under the car (the mechanic I worked with laughed and said everyone does it once or twice) After that to clean it off I sprayed some carb cleaner all over everything on the underside of my car.

Now it seems like ever since that night my front shocks have been acting shitty, like when going over speed bumps the front seems to slam down hard and the back settles down like normal, and hitting potholes and **** I can tell the front is acting like there's less shock, more spring.

I didn't figure the wheels just hanging in the front while the car was jacked up wouldnt make it act funny, since tons of people do that regularly, but would oil being sprayed all over everything followed by carb cleaner have affected anything? Or is it just random coincidence that later that night I noticed my suspension acting differently?

Otherwise have yall ever heard of just the front shocks giving out suddenly and randomly like that?

I know I probably sound retarded, but this problem is wierd and it's pissing me off that my car doesn't handle like normal

 

did you spray the carb cleaner on the struts? that is very odd, you said both the front wheels were jacked up and now they are both not dampening well? are they factory struts?

 

My 5th gen is doing the same thing, im betting money on blown struts. That's what usually goes on sturts some of your rebound dampening so if feels like your car bounces. Did you check if the carb cleaner eats away @ rubber seals if so then you may have cleaned the dirty rubber that was holding your strut together.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Speedra500 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">did you spray the carb cleaner on the struts? that is very odd, you said both the front wheels were jacked up and now they are both not dampening well? are they factory struts?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Well I didn't spray them in particular. Yeah, as far as I know they're the original factory struts.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Chuckles99SH &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My 5th gen is doing the same thing, im betting money on blown struts. That's what usually goes on sturts some of your rebound dampening so if feels like your car bounces. Did you check if the carb cleaner eats away @ rubber seals if so then you may have cleaned the dirty rubber that was holding your strut together.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm afraid maybe that's what happened, the dirt holding stuff together. One thing one of the mechanics I work with suggested was that when the wheels were just hanging maybe the struts expanded all teh way and stretched out and fucked up the seal, he said to check to see if they were leaking, I haven't yet. That doesn't make too much sense to me though, every other time I've changed my oil it's been up on a lift, and all 4 wheels were free-hanging, you think they'd have all been fucked up?

I'm just about positive whatever did cause them to act like this happened that night, because even an hour later my brother who never rides in my car and drives a truck noticed it, and my girlfriend who knows nothing about cars commented on it too, and it's all since that night. It doesn't make much sense to me that just the front two shocks would randomly blow out like that, so it must have been something that night.

Anyone else got anything on the theory that them expanding too much while the car was jacked up would cause it?

 

unless the strut was damaged to begin with them fully extending should not affect their performance, I guess it could be possible that the shock cylinder was slightly out of round or in some way distorted towards the top of the cylinder allowing the gas to escape while fully extended? That is just a guess, maybe someone that has actually had more experiences with things like that could shed more light on it