ashy90 wrote:
Either way, a normally sprung car, can have 'dampers' which are worn past their best, and the car is still totally drivable. You make out that a car with worn dampers is a death trap, when in reality most cars with 'aged' dampers are still safe. I mean mine on its original suspension at 12 years old and 150k miles still brakes straight, can cruise at speed and feels perfectly safe. Sure they are past their best, and I am sure if I put new dampers on it then it would transform it, however its certainly not unsafe.
The spheres on my in-laws Xantia where about 4 or 5 years old. The car was off road for about a week due to an electrical fault, and when they went to take it to the garage to get the fault sorted, the suspension had gone too. Bouncing all over the road.
A car with worn dampers
is a death trap waiting to happen, with increased stopping distances and, as with a car I had, lurching to the side when you brake due to one side being more worn than the other. It's made worse because if you don't know about suspension, as most people don't, you have no idea how dangerous the car is or even that something needs changing.
Your in-laws car proves my point about spheres (assuming that the harsh ride was caused by flat/split spheres and not a seized height corrector linkage from being laid up for a week, or an electrovalve problem putting it into hard mode), as spheres don't go from being properly inflated to flat in a week, so for months before, the spheres needed changing but still performed their job, still dampened properly, still stopped properly, still didn't lurch under braking.