New to this forum but not to forums in general. Did alot of searching for shock recommendations. Mom passed away and I've got a 76k mile car in very good shape but badly needs front and rear shocks. I'd like to bring back the OEM ride and found many opinions that seem to summarize on Sachs/Boge (advance or automatic), KYB (GR2?) being fairly close to OEM ride, Bilstein TC a bit stiffer. Also found the chart of the suspension system from Pierre to give me a better idea of what's there. Checked pricing from various places and FCPEuro has also Meyle shocks. I went to their site and they're made in Germany and Turkey and called them, the rep said they would be OEM replacement ride and had very good luck on that brand and has them on his own S60. I didn't come across anyone discussing them, what say others here? Given the age of the vehicle, I'm looking at the upper mount with the bearing and saw the Rein unit. Any thoughts on that? Car drives and tracks very well and haven't had the time to jack it up and pull on other suspension components to see if I've got a bad component there. I'd prefer not to get into replacing a lot of suspension components but I'm open to some. Thanks in advance. Fred

 

Many apologies to Pierce, not Pierre. Sorry about that.

 

you should always replace the upper strut mount with the struts, its got a rubber piece which wears out, and when that fails, the strut goes through your hood. I've been warned repeatedly to avoid aftermarket rubber bits on these cars, as the quality tends to be sub-standard.

when I've used KYB struts in the past, they were very stiff new, and wore out rather quickly, but that was years ago on various VW golf/jetta things (A1, A2). The Boge/Sachs stuff lasts a long time.

 

I was hoping you'd reply Pierce. Now that you mention'd the rubber upper mount, I believe I saw a reply from you on another post. I assume that would be a Volvo OEM mount, if so, who have you gotten the better pricing for it? Sachs has 2 shocks, the "advance" and the "advantage". If one of the 2 is a gas shock, I'd prefer not go there. Which one were you referring to?

 

in the old days, Boge had "Progas" and "Turbogas" shocks, the Pro were softer and dynamically self-adaptive, while the Turbogas was more of a sport shock, and overall stiffer. I used the Progas on my Jetta A2 GLI and loved the results. I believe these are what are called Sachs Automatic today, and they were the OEM shocks on most bricks.

 

Many thanks, I thought that might be it. Any preferred sites for the OEM rubber upper mount for pricing?
As a btw, that Jetta wasn't a diesel by chance? I've got an itch for a diesel version.
Thanks, Fred

 

hah, no. my jetta was a 1989 GLi 16V. had the 1.8L 16V, I think it was 123HP. a very short ratio gearbox with a fast short stick, great brakes, good stiff suspension, and eek, FWD. I put 250,000 miles on that car in 5 years commuting over a mountain road and back country highways. I was skinny then, it had these wonderful Recaro seats. hand crank windows, hand crank sunroof, very basic car that drove like stink. I wore out a set of tires (Pirelli P6 in 180/60HR14) annually, new rubber at the beginning of each rainy season. I got hit in it when it was still fairly new, and it was very solid, just needed basic body work and was fine for the rest of its useful life.

 

oh. my favorite 4 volvo parts places.

1) IPDUSA
2) FCPEuro
3) Tascaparts
4) Volvopartswebstore

1 and 2 /might/ have the OEM strut mounts, and probably have a variety of alternatives.

3 & 4 are both actual volvo dealers, have ALL volvo parts if you know the right part numbers. 3 has a 30-35% discount, 4 has a 25-27% discount. 4 has been more reliable about backorder notifications and such, and their website is better. note that if you go 3 or 4, expect nearly NO customer support. you want that, go to your local dealer's part counter and good luck.

I've gotten great customer support, including a few bits of tech assistance, from IPD. FCP handled a return painlessly but I have no other experience. as a west coaster, and considering how long IPD has been around, I have some abstract customer loyalty to them. my springs and swaybars are IPD

 

Never seen a Volvo needing strut mounts or shocks with 76k miles unless it is an off roader rally car.
You either don't need those parts or this car has way more miles. I got 740 with 250k still on original shocks and all that...

 

my 1992 740 turbo wagon had 180K miles when I got it, and the suspension was pretty tired, the shocks didn't have a lot of damping left, and the joints had some creaks when I pushed it hard around mountain roads. I 'overdid' it, and replaced everything, which with hindsight was probably stupid. The IPD antisway bars made it lean a lot less on high G turns, and the bilstein TC shocks do behave nicely when pushed hard, but the ride is a little harsher on bad roads around town than I'd really like. some of that may be the 205/50-16 tires I'm running on Hydra rims vs the stock 195/60-15.

our 1987 240, we're original owners... that car got new stock shocks at about 200k miles, and at about 350k miles, it had /so/ many creaks and clunks in the back end, that I bought all the rear end bushings and had a local mechanic replace every one (I didn't have a suitable place or access to the tooling to do this myself). a couple years ago, I had to replace the inner tie-rod ends of the steering as they had 1/4" or more of play. last time I had the wheels aligned, I was told the main bushings of the control arms were sloppy, so he couldn't dial it in exactly. that car is now somewhere over 400k miles and still drives damn good, but it could use new dampers-er-shocks/struts again.

you replace the strut mounts when you replace the struts for a couple reasons. A) they are probably 20 years old and tired. B) you got new shocks, yer gonna be driving harder, because it feels good. the weakest link will fail. C) you gotta remove them to replace the shocks anyways, and the new parts aren't /that/ expensive

 

Strut mounts don't get tired from time, only miles/use. You'll end up with $200 unneeded expense to replace OEM mounts for some surely Chinese made ones--not smart. Volvo owners either love their cars to death, replacing things *****-nilly because the trade sells them stuff, or do nothing at all.
"You gonna drive harder with new shocks"? That's one I haven't heard before...

 

After seeing the other Pierce image of the front suspension, I'm having a difficult time identifying the upper strut mount from the tasca site given the mount looks like multiple pieces. If i read this right, the tasca #23 description says its a strut mount at $261.72 each and I need 2. Wow. Add to that the strut bearing and who knows what. Is this really what an OEM mount costs? Here is the other image I saw from a Pierce post.

 

Lev and Pierce, I relooked at my odometer and I believe you're right that the mileage is much higher. I believe the far left counter has a "1" and i thought it was part of the border. The numeral coloring is much lighter than the other counter numerals. The way it rides backs up the idea it's more like 176k miles.

 

hey, mine has 220k miles on it, and drives/rides like new. (except an annoying buzz-rattle in the driver door panel on hard bass notes from the 6" woofer just started happening... I used a fair bit of RTV to seal the speaker and stuff when I assembled it, guess the door panel has to come off again).

 

per VADIS, a 1985 740T has support plate 1387188, and bearing 3530341.... the plate is part 43 here, Front axle spring support. Fits: Volvo | VolvoPartsWebstore.com

the bearing is part 41.

radius arm bushings 25 frequently wear out and contribute to sloppy steering.