How to replace car struts without a spring compressor
The safest alternative is buying pre-assembled non-OEM quick struts, though they cost around $600 a set and often wear out in just 20,000 to 50,000 miles. Releasing tension by lowering the control arm with a jack is risky because the changing angle can cause the jack to slip and spit out suddenly. This leaves people stuck between replacing expensive quick struts every one to three years or facing the sheer danger of compressing gigantic car springs.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Using a floor jack under the lower control armDid this help you?
- 2Trying a transmission jack or pole jackDid this help you?
- 3Using 'death sticks' (manual coil compressors) very carefullyDid this help you?
- 4Finding a local shop with a wall-mounted compressor to pay to useDid this help you?
- 5Buying pre-assembled quick struts despite the quality concernsDid this help you?
- 6Paying an auto shop to do the entire jobDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Using the jack to lower the lower control arm can be done. Be careful though, as the angle of the control arm changes and becomes more oblique to the jack cup it's more likely to spit out all of a sudden.”source ↗
“I had to choose between either buying a non-OEM quick strut or acquiring a coil compressor and doing the dangerous work of compressing the springs to take them off the old struts and put them on the new ones.”source ↗
“All other parts of this job look fine to me EXCEPT the sheer danger of compressing gigantic car springs.”source ↗
“hearing that quick struts go at 20-30k MAYBE 50k if they're good, is giving me nasty feelings deep inside, because its like $600 for a set of em and I don't wanna replace these stupid things every 1-3 years til the car dies.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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