Anybody had this happen to them? - it sure is a brand new one to me after about 30 years of working on many, many cars.

Were doing normal maintenance on the car over the weekend, had right front up on trestles with the left front therefore in "compressed" state for the better part of a day.

On completing what I wanted to do, I drop the car, and on driving off I realize something is funky - car pulls right and its acting like I have no front suspension at all - I bounce around like a toddler in a jolly jumper every time I hit the smallest bump.

Stop and checked front and the damn left strut is obviously refusing to release and extend. Drive onto a 4 post jack, lift the car, and fiddle with the left front for a while and notice it does in fact release extremely slowly and after about a minute the wheel will reach its normal extended state.

To me it looks like there is nothing to do about this so I drop the vehicle and immediately on driving over the first bump in the road both front struts compress and become sulky and my front end is effectively solid with only the pliability of the front tires offering some "suspension".

WTH - 2 failed front struts in a matter of minutes by the exact same failure mechanism? .................... never seen this happen before on a vehicle that till that point in time showed no signs of either steering or suspension problems.

So its major pain time here - I am staying in this armpit of the Earth called South Africa where just about everything Maxima is either not avaible (perhaps only ex Japan) or so damn expensive that it may be cheaper to import myself from the US ......... and as it happens front struts are one of those items .............sigh!

 

That sucks. No, I haven't heard of that unless it's been REALLY cold outside and the oil in the struts actually freezes. I would expect the weather is pretty nice down there right now though so that shouldn't be the case.

Otherwise, the only thing I can think is that the struts (originals?) have some sediment in them and keeping them bottomed out during the work caused the sediments to get clogged in the valving assemblies.

That's my only guess....

 

Avg day temp currently around 28C+ so yeah I am equally baffled.

Don't know if its the originals but suspect its possible - if so I guess I shouldn't complain since they have done 300K km

 

The same thing happend to me a long time ago, but I replaced both front struts right away. After sometime of the car being off the ground for non suspension related repairs, I lowered the car and immediately backed it up and did a large burnout. Immediately following the burnout, I noticed one of the front struts had collapsed (compressed) completely. I don't remember exactly when this occurred or what the cause was as it was more than 11 years ago. I know this because I moved in 98 when the car had around 90K miles and it was before that.

Like I said I had replaced both struts the very same day but I would imagine with one side of the front supplying all the shock absorption the other strut would have failed in a matter of days or miles. I wish I could supply more information but in the 90s my car knowledge wasn't what it is today and a shop replaced the struts for me.

I had never before or since seen a strut completely fail like this. Perhaps the cartridge casing failed and leaked the fluid out, or the internal orifice plate broke loose and therefore provided no more resistance? You must still have your strut so please check that it still has the correct amount of fluid, and if so cut it open and see if the orifice plate hasn't come loose.

 

Thanks for the experience and good to know I am at least no alone.

The struts are still on the car and soon as I can get stock somewhere I will replace both for sure ................ but as I said I am in South Africa.

No leaks on the struts at all - nice and clean.

Oh I intend cutting them open and seeing wtf happened as I have never ever personally experienced/seen this kind of sudden disastrous failure in 30+ years

 

seen it before also.
usually the seal is broken and water gets into the valve. then over time the water gets sloshed around and decides to rust on critical parts. the rust makes the strut difficult to slide so then eventually it'll get stuck to the point where the spring can't make it rebound.

 

Yup. Had my driver side struff stiffen up really bad. beat me up until I replaced both. I'm accustomed to them going soft.

Can you get Tokicos in South Africa? The ride is right, and priced less than stock, more than some.

 

In South Africa "can you get" means "can you get anything for the Maxima at all?".

I have spent the better part of this week already visiting just about every 3rd party spares shop in the area and get either "sorry agents only" as response or I am supplied the wrong part. (agents have no stock and will order ex Japan @ $475 with a 6 week delivery time!)

Eventually I removed the one strut and started showing the guys what it looks like ................. today I actually got a set of KYBs ($220) and it seems that they will work.

Will report back with part numbers later.

 

For a small fee, I'll be glad to purchase and ship the stuff to you from here...

 

Thanks for the offer Matt - will keep it in mind in the future (FWIW I suspect I actually already bought a MAF off you on eBay a while back)

I did have a look on eBay and found complete 4 shock/strut sets offered for as little as $144 ............ but then some of these guys wanted $275 for shipping so it just didn't make sense. There are also other individual items on offer at more reasonable prices (90+70 shipping per corner) but knowing our postal system here (suspect 3-6 weeks delivery time) and given the fact that I need to actually use the vehicle, I decided to put in the extra effort locally.

The KYBs I eventually found locally went in today and after a wheel alignment all seems to be well now. Vehicle is slightly higher in the front now because of the bottom spring seat on the KYbs having been welded to the strut about 1" higher than on the OEM ones that came out - the actual strut tube section is also slightly longer (1"+) but after a lot of experimentation it looks like it will not be an issue.

Anyway - crisis averted - shes a runner again/still

 

When are you gonna cut open those failed struts to find out what the cause of failure was??? Im very interested to find out.

 

Monday only ............. I have a few beers here with my name on this weekend

 

OK - as promised - surgery performed.



As I said - no leaky struts. Quite disappointed when I cut the top off and the oil is basically pristine with no rust or metal bits.

Extracted the inner cylinder and still no indication of what has gone wrong.

Removed bottom retainer assembly (the actual shock absorber part of it all) and still nothing doing.

Removed the inner piston assembly and voilą - lots (teaspoonful?) of plasticky bits on top of the valve assembly - all in small chunks. Its obvious what happened is that the plasticky bits got in between the piston seal and the cylinder wall and formed a very nice wedge causing the "locked in compressed state" - one can see the score marks on the piston.

Valve assembly and operation is pristine imo and the shock would have been able to do its job had those plasticky bits not caused the disaster.

So what is the plasticky bits? ............... don't know.

Stripped 2 struts and both have this present - from the construction of the actual inner shock absorber part and the location of the bits on top of the piston, I have to guess and say it used to be a plastic "guide" that the chrome shaft went through located probably close to the top of the shock?

Why it would break/disintegrate when the shock is in a fully compressed state I don't know.




Anyway - KYB #334480 and #334481 now in the vehicle and all is well again even though they are about 1" longer and cause the vehicle to stand slightly higher in the front (my guess that is not as much as one would think because of front spring aging and sagging - effectively the vehicle now has the original date of manufacture stance as a result?)