I bought a used set of Civic SI struts from this guy and he claims they have about 10k miles on them.

When I push down on them (compress them) then let them decompress...they bearly move back out, almost not moving at all.

Is that normal? Should they decompress a little smoother or what?

 

hmmm...my experience with this is pretty much a toss up.

when messing with kyb agx's, the rod took it's sweet time to return.

with tokico blue non-adjustable's, they moved pretty freely

 

I got my reply from someone else...

There is compression and rebound damping. Usually compression damping is fairly light because it would transmit road shock into the car. Its the resistance the shock has to compressing. Once compressed, the rebound damping kicks in. Its usually much stronger, and if the shock is 'adjustable' its almost always just the rembound damping that is adjustable. 'Sporty' shocks tend to be fairly stiff on rebound, this minimizes the extension of the suspension on the inside wheels on a car when going around a corner. Looser shocks would allow the springs to more quickly extend, and the car would lean over a bit more in transient conditions.

Usually worn shocks lose damping, not become stiffer. The piston seals get worn and the little valves and springs which control the damping get leaky. Then there's little damping at all - if you push down the springs can just quickly bounce back to the original height. For a shock to do anything at all it has to slow that bounce down. I'd say yours are probably working just fine, just stiffer than whatever you had on theire before.