Buy Struts for Your Suzuki

South African road surfaces are harsher on suspension than the conditions these cars were originally calibrated for, and Suzuki's lighter kerb weights mean components are sized closer to the limit. The Jimny is its own case entirely: enough of them have been lifted or re-shod that standard-height parts are the wrong answer more often than not. In practice the decision in front of you is whether to replace only the component that has failed or refresh the whole corner, because everything bolted alongside a worn damper has covered exactly the same distance over exactly the same roads.

The generation or year, and — if it is a Jimny or a 4x4 derivative — whether the suspension is standard or has been modified. With that we can usually confirm the right part quickly, and we'll tell you whether we're quoting new, aftermarket or good used rather than leaving you to guess.

The old bounce test tells you very little on a modern car. Better signs are a wet film of oil down the strut body, tyres wearing in patches rather than evenly, and a car that takes an extra movement to settle after a dip. A workshop can put it on a shaker plate and measure it if you want certainty.

Always on the front. The strut is part of the steering geometry, so camber and often castor move the moment it is unbolted. Skipping it is how a new set of tyres gets ruined in a few thousand kilometres. Book the alignment to follow straight after the struts go on.

Road surface, not the odometer. A damper seal survives smooth tar almost indefinitely and dies quickly on corrugated gravel, broken tar edges and speed humps taken at pace, because every one of those movements is heat the oil has to shed. Two identical cars on different routes will not need struts at the same time.

On a strut it is worth it, because this is the one place where doing the job twice really hurts. The mount rubber and its bearing have taken the same years of load, they are the usual source of a knock over bumps, and reaching them means dismantling the strut all over again.

Not at the front. It runs coil springs over separate shock absorbers on a rigid axle located by links, which is a different set of parts from the strut assemblies used on the Swift, Baleno and the rest of the front-wheel-drive range. Send your VIN with the quote form and we will confirm whether your car has struts at that corner.