Probably a stupid question, but what is the main difference between the front strut mount and the spring seat? Many cars I have worked on before seem to have the spring seat as part of the upper mounting point for the strut.

Reason I ask is that in about 4-6 weeks I am going to put new struts and shocks on our 850 Turbo sedan, and I want to be sure I order all that I am going to need.

Also, which motor mount would you suspect to contribute to a slight thunk when the transmission is put into reverse

Glenn

 

I did NOT put on new strut mounts, but definitely new spring seats and sway bar end links too. My bump stops were real bad too and luckily I bought them. The Strut Mounts are pretty expensive, and mine looked fine on both cars I have done.

 

The strut mounts bolt onto the car, the springs seats are part of the strut assembly. The spring seats mate with the strut mounts and are held on by the large upside down castellated washer that is added after the assembly goes back together. I changed out the bad spring seats on two of my 850's (with XC90 seats) and, suspecting that I may have bad strut mounts I ordered two of them for both cars.

At the end of the day they had very minimal play in them but I did change one strut mount on each car since I had the new ones already. I did save the old ones because they were not that bad. Used OEMs are better than Scan Tech replacements.

+1 on the bump stops. The stops on my Platinum had completely disintegrated. I did get some knockoff replacements from NAPA that hold the bellows in place but they are nothing like the OEMS.

...Lee