I realize that most of you upgraded your suspensions but did anybody replace their struts with stock cartridges? My 97 had 98,000 miles and wallowed around corners worse than when new. I didn't want it lowered and got OEM Nissan struts on all four corners. Now the car rides VERY firm over bumps and feels like it wants to skip sideways in the rear when a bump is encountered in a turn. The front doesn't seem to absorb bumps with out jarring the front end and causing my CD player to skip on medium size bumps. It is my understanding that struts absorb the shocks and springs control the ride height. Please correct me if I am wrong. I ordered the stock GXE struts and installed them myself.My dealer says..."huh, that's weird." and offers no help. Any suggestions would help. I checked all the suspension bolts and torqued accordinly. Thanks Guys, I appreciate all the help this forum has given to me.

 

That doesn't make sense to me either. The springs set the height and stiffness of the vehicle's suspension and the struts/shocks control the spring energy (dampen the spring movement). Were the strut bearings/upper mounts worn when you changed the struts out?

-V

 

Did you get the 'stock' SE type maybe? They are stiffer than GXE/GLE ones

 

Your probably just used to driving around on such a soft worn out suspension that now your finally feeling the road again. Drive it around for a while to get used to the way the car should ride.

 

Strange....

Either you got SE/springs/struts by accident which are a little stiffer than GLE/GXE from what I hear or....

something's up. There's no way stock struts/springs should be stiff enough to "make the rear feel like it's going to skid sideways" with no other mods esp...

Check each corner by heavily pushing down and getting the springs to compress as far as you can by bouncing it. Do they compress the same?
Maybe one or more struts was bad and has seized/locked up?

I got water in a strut once that froze over night and seized the whole thing up the next morning. Talk about a stiff and scary ride...

dunno

-RMB

 

Thank you all who answered. I have had the new struts for 6 months now and I too thought they might break in. The mechanic that compressed the cartridges said every thing looked fine. I spent $375 and deffinately not pleased. The whole reason I stayed stock was to avoid this problem. I guess I'll dig up the reciept and call to compare the differance in strut part numbers(SE and GXE). I appreciate all who responded.