Monroe Sensatrac strut leaking after 30K, seek warantee advice, do I need to replace in pairs

Unfortunately that seems to be a frequent experience with Monroes. Struts get noticibly bad around 60k miles. Your struts are half way there. The "good" one is already half bad. If it were me and I intended to keep the car for another year, I would replace both. Next time don't get Monroes.

Yeah, the Monroes use fiber glass type pistons and are cheaply made. But they should have lifetime warranty like all aftermarkets, but you'll be stuck with the labor. 30K miles is usually past the 12K mile

12 month warranty. But your local Sears may offer better warranty that includes labor? Labor is usually $50 each side plus alignment if needed.

Good thing I decided to go with Gabriel Ultras (their top of the line) and install them myself. Excellent struts with inertia sensitive

9-stage valving and iron pistons. More comfortable on streets and better control on highways than stock. Buy these when AutoZone offers buy-3-get-1-free.

Check out the G-Force video:

You can also get Bilsteins at AutoZone but the HD and Sports are stiff. Touring class may suit some better.

The stock Showa or the common KYB (Keep Your Bilsteins) GR2 have only primitive valves which I don't like. For normal driving, these types of struts (without auto adjusting multi-stage inertia sensing technology) belong in the museum.

It's better to change out at least by the pair so the condition on both sides are similar.

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

"*" snipped-for-privacy@this.addy.com> wrote in news:01c70015$c25aeb00$b490c3d8@race:

<snip excellent info>

Then how much would you say shocks actually deteriorate in normal road use?

Assuming no stickiness or leakage, why exactly do shocks "wear out"?

I still have the original shocks on my '91 Integra after 277,000 miles. They feel OK with the bounce test, but I'm wondering how much of a difference new OEMs would make. They are neither sticky nor leaking fluid.

I would venture a guess that after 277K, you have grown accustomed to the deteriorating ride. Put a new set of OEM's and you might hafta be hospitalized for shock due to the greatly improved ride quality...

JT

Have you had any experience with Edlebrock shocks? I've used them and Monroe's and like the Monroe's better. When I called Monroe tech with a question about shock application showing they were not going to have the Sensatraks anymore for what I was looking for, only the Reflex, he said it would actually still be the Sensatraks but they were calling them all Reflex from now one, some would really be the reflex valveing apparently and some would still use the sensatrak valving.