A few months ago, I bought a 92 245 that had "allegedly" had struts and shocks replaced at 205K miles (now has 236K miles). The proof of shock and strut replacement was a receipt from the dealer (I won't mention names... but the VIN on the bill matches the car). Now that the Resto-Mod I'm doing to the car has reached the front suspension, I was surprised to find that the chrome on the strut shaft was worn away and the brass plating was showing. When I finally removed the cartridge, it had an early 1992 date code! This told me they were never replaced!

The scary part is that their full compression rebound time was only twice as slow as a new factory strut! The car (before tear-down obviously) actually handled better than our 90 244 that has 10K on the shocks and struts!

In short, I am amazed that a strut could still do it's job 236K miles after it was installed at the factory! Who in the heck made the factory struts and schocks!!!???

Talk about over-engineering by Volvo!

jorrell