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Shocks and Struts: Which to use? and Fixing shock absorber rattle noises

Which to use

by “C'Dale Rider” — contributed by “swalve”

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On Chrysler minivans at least, Monroe specs three (3) part numbers for the full range of vans Chrysler made. Seems like enough, right, even though the dealers have well over 25 part numbers for the same vans.

But it did make a vast difference in fitment for my brother (a mechanic, ASE certified in almost all car systems....over 25 years experience). He got in a Town and Country minivan....got the appropriate Monroe Sensa-Tracs for it and they fit terribly; took forever to get them in, and they rode horribly, so the customer was less than satisfied. A replacement set of Monroes were put in (on the assumption that the first set was "bad") and there was no improvement.

On a whim, John ordered a set from the Chrysler dealer. Fit like a glove and the ride was dramatically better.

I wouldn't call the dealer stuff badly made since they seem to last over 60K in normal use. (While aftermarket manufacturers provide lifetime warranties,) Lifetime is a relative thing....and sure, Monroe, et al, can offer lifetime warranties on their stuff.....all in the hopes that the car their struts are installed in are traded/sold before they wear out significantly enough to warrant replacing. Interestingly, the struts cost very little at the jobber end, which makes one wonder exactly how much Monroe really has in each one.

Moral of the story: the dealer's stock of struts are specific to model, options, engines, etc. and valved differently for each. Monroe, to control costs, whittled down the rather large range of struts Chrysler specs to three units and hoped they fit well and generally satisfy the drivers. As had been already noted, many times the dealer struts can be had at the same price as the Monroes.

Not knocking Bilsteins, KYBs, or Konis here ... they're for a different set of expectations and give different results.

Fixing shock absorber rattles

The problem: on a 1989 Dynasty, the driver's side had a mysterious rattle/bump. The problem appeared to be the shock absorber mount. On a 1991 Spirit R/T, the same problem arose from both sides when the stock shock absorbers were replaced with KYBs. In both cases, the problem appeared to be the shock absorber bolt.

Herbert Neily wrote:

Buy Bilstein and KYB Shocks and other new OEM and aftermarket auto parts at Parts Geek.

I've suffered from rattling rear shocks on my '89 Acclaim. The problem started when I replaced the factory shocks with NAPA shocks. Suddenly, I had a rattle that actually sounded like something larger, like the exhaust system banging around on larger bumps. ... It seems like the upper shock mounting hole was slightly larger than the factory bolt. I eventually shrunk some heat-shrink wire insulation over the bolt and pounded the bolt in place - no more rattle. Many quiet miles later, I again replaced the shocks, this time with Monroe Gas-Matics. AARGH, the rattle was back. I'm wondering if there's some kind of metric vs. SAE fastener incompatibility issue at work here.

I've found that although the motor (2.5T) is all metric, the body and chassis seem to randomly mix fastener standards. I'm going to try the nearest larger metric and SAE bolt sizes and see if that works.

L. Rousseau I.M.P. wrote:

I ended up taking the old shock and pressed the metal piece out of the bushing. I then took it to the store and matched it up with the metric bolt.

If you have already gotten rid of the old shocks, I would pull off the new shocks and take on of those to the store.

It took me a while to figure out that the little bump/tap noise was from the bolts.