are shocks and struts the same exact thing???

[98FWDSM]

ok....i know that this is probably a STUPID QUESTION...but hey, what is the newbie forum for?? well anyways i am selling my stock springs and stock shocks to someone and he keeps saying springs/shocks/struts....and now he said that he wants to make sure that i include the struts too??? tell me what is going on?!?! i sent him this picture. . .

 

[David15151]

for our cars yes its the same thing.

 

[oldman]

I think he might be talking about the housing and the top mount.

 

[polarmoment]

well, the technical definition of the two says that 2g's use shocks.

struts are defined as a damper that is bolted to and acts as a single piece with the hub carrier/knuckle. this means that the motion of the wheel moving upward is both defined AND damped by the strut. with a shock, the geometry of movement is defined by the control arms and damped by the shocks.

if you remove a shock, the suspension will have the same path of travel, it'll just do so unsprung/damped.

if you remove a strut, the hub carrier will just flop in any which direction.

the names are often interchanged, but yes there is a difference. you are selling shocks. 2g dsm's don't use struts.

 

[98FWDSM]

thank you ) you learn something new everyday

 

[imptuner]

i always took the difference as shocks and struts as:

shocks being more generic term for the whole assembly under the spring

and a strut as only part of the shock.

ie my friend ordered koni struts he had to take his stock shocks and cut the end off to pull the plunger and the rod coming out of the top out and replace it with koni's parts


so a strut is part of a shock

 

[Tacoma-Srunner]

so whats the difference on a 1G.. ive been trying to lookup parts for my car for a few days and its too damn confusing.. i blew the left side suspension out (so its leaning to the left)

the front has struts.. this i know.. but what about the back? some sites say its a strut.. some say its just a shock...

is it somewhat like:
1G FWD (front strut, rear shock)
1G AWD(struts all around)

???? im so damn confused!

 

[polarmoment]

so whats the difference on a 1G.. ive been trying to lookup parts for my car for a few days and its too damn confusing.. i blew the left side suspension out (so its leaning to the left)

the front has struts.. this i know.. but what about the back? some sites say its a strut.. some say its just a shock...

is it somewhat like:
1G FWD (front strut, rear shock)
1G AWD(struts all around)

???? im so damn confused!

from looking at the 1g manual, they seem to use struts up front with shocks in back, regardless of FWD or AWD.

the term "strut" or "shock" refers to whether or not the damper is an integral part of the suspension's path of motion or not.

 

[Tacoma-Srunner]

the car manual or like a haynes/chilton complete breakdown???

see this is weird.. i wanted to get some monroe shocks/struts whatever for the car so i went on their site www.monroe.com and it only lists struts for front & back.. no shock.. so im assuming they are all struts... the rear's are still cheap around $25 each for the monro-matic... its the fronts that are a bit more around $40 each for the monro-matic and $53 for the sensa-trac...

i need clarification on this damn subject already

thanks for your help tho dude!