Silver Bean

Hi All,

I have an '88 944 Turbo S with M030 and the sealed Koni front struts. The struts are original to the car and show no signs of leaking and/or damage after 50,000 miles. I just replaced the rear shocks (one had failed) and I'm curious about what kind of life I might expect for the front struts? If a strut is failing what are the symptoms? The car drives great now and I'm just thinking ahead for when I might need new front struts. It was obvious when the rear shock failed but with the front I'm wondering if it will be so easy to tell.

Thanks for any thoughts on the subject!

Jeremy Himsel

Bad struts tend to show signs of leaking fluid at the piston rod, sound like someone hit your fender with a hammer when you go over a go bump, cause the car to bounce up and down at freeway speeds, cause the fender rub the tire on hard cornering. You could get one or all of these with dfferent levels of intensity. It may not even be noticable for a while.

jerome951

Apparently the front struts on these cars are pretty sturdy (thankfully, considering the price).

Mine have 113k miles (last 30 mostly track) and are fine (though I'm removing them this winter to upgrade).

A friend had his start leaking from the top at 180k or so.

Epic2112

mine were done at 100K

hosrom_951

Mine were not leaking, but caused vibrations on low and high speed (new tires, balanced, check rims, control arms, tie rods etc).

Mileage was <100,000kms (~62,000miles), though the front springs were CUT from the last 2 owners which MAY have been the cause.

Anyways, you could get the front strut inerst from Paragon Products for ~$120 each, needs minor mods to convert from oil to gas-pressured struts.

RMills944

Mine just "thumped" a lot and the front of the car sways up and down while driving. My steering was fine though. The balljoints are usually what causes vibrations. You may want to check balljoints while you're in there if they haven't been replaced.

Dark Lightning

My '88 951 non-S has somewhatly soft front struts. Is this normal or is it supposed to be firm?

I have already replaced the rears with Koni adjustables to solve a suspension squeak (which didn't go away ), and the car has a see-saw or ping-pong kind of feel. Rear is a rock and the front bounces slightly. Most of the time it's ok but on harsher bumps it gets annoying.

Cyrus951

M030 adjustable struts are around $700 each.

Peckster

Same test as for shocks. Bounce the front of the car up and down sevreal times in resonance and quickly stop. It should come up once, then stop. If it bounces more than once the strut's no good.

jc22

They can also lock up and be very difficult, if not impossible to compress. That's what happened to mine somewhere before 160k.

Gator_86_951

Mine were horrible at 170k. They had no rebound at all.