How can one tell if there Rear Struts are going bad or completely DEAD??

 

well without pulling them out, you really cant tell unless they are making noise. One little test you can try is go to your car and push on the back end to make the suspension travel and see if you can hear it, or just pay real good attention when driving, they will make a clunking sound when hitting bumps if they are real bad.

 

my car doesnt make a clunking noise, i hear more of a "SQUEAKITY SQUEAK" noise while going over bumpy roads. it sounds like its coming from somewhat the rear right most passenger side. and its really not noticable unless listening for it. at first i thought it was inside the cabin, but I JUST DONT KNOW

when i go over speed bumps i dont hear ANYTHING and when i press down or pull up on either end of the car i dont hear anything?

im clueless, ANY INSIGHT WOULD BE HELPFUL, thanks

 

bounce the car. the strut is there to dampen spring movement. if the car is bouncing easily, strut is usually no good. a good strut will not alow the car to bounce more than 1 - 1 1/2 times after you stop exerting force on your car. make sure you test the struts ability to absorb both jounce and rebound motions. on newer cars like ours, you can drive it and see if theres any knocking/thumping noise over bumps. the noise will most likely be a strut as opposed to the mount since our mounts rarely ever go bad under normal driving conditions. also see if theres alot of bouncing as the car comes out of a speed bump

the squeaking sound could be due to alot of things. winter time is coming around. all yours bushings are getting stiff and dry. you could try lubing everything up and see if the noise goes away. also try lubing up the rubber underneath and above the springs where it sits against the strut perch

 

I just upgraded the struts on my 01 gle with 132K miles.

On opening out the struts, the shocks were GONE, they had no dampening action what so ever. If I pushed the shock in, darn thing didnt even come back out, I had to pull it out.

I was surprised that the rears were in considerably worse shape than the fronts. the fronts still had about 40% travel.

One thing I learnt from my upgrade, not to trust the bounce test at all.