At 107,000 miles on the sedan, I thought I would treat my car to an alignment. It pulls to the right and the tire wear is uneven (the front right side of each front tire is worn down). However now I'm wondering if I should have treated it to new struts. It seems fine with the old bounce test you do with shocks. How do I know if it needs struts?

Does the 1997 850 have automatic adjusting shocks, Namrod
or whatever they call it. I'd like to get new struts and
shocks and they always ask that question regarding whether
or not the model year has self leveling shocks

Can anyone recommend the brand to get?

Thanks Brix

Check the lower ball joints and the lower a-arm bushings. Those on our '96 850 failed well before your mileage. If those parts are worn, then realignment will not cure your problems.

John

Do the bounce test. Push down on one corner several times very hard. The car should only bounce back once, any more and you need new struts. As far as the strut towers do what the guy before said, but unless your struts are bad and you are hearing noise from the towers, don't waste your money fixing something that doesn't need fixed. Let it break first. When the struts go, you will know. The car will bounce at every bump.

To check your front struts, first check the mounts which are known to fail around your mileage. Open the hood and look for the disc-shapped large washer located on top of the strut tower. If there is a 1/4" gap under the washer then the mounts are probably ok.

However, at your mileage, it may be best to change both the strut mounts as well as the struts. For the rear, same thing for the shocks and mounts. You can do this project youself, there was a recent discussion on Volvospeed.com with a link to step-by-step instructions. I just changed mine a month ago.

You will be very pleasantly surprised at how much better the ride is with new shocks. I always changed to aftermarket by 60K. Do the mounts at the same time, you will swear the car is new again.