All,

I want to replace my struts on my 2001 Grand Prix GTP. It has about 110k miles on it. I am having some issues with tire wear and will be replacing the tires soon but want to do the struts before that. Once the struts are replaced I will have it aligned. The car does not seem to have an excessive bounce it sure looks like the ride has deteriorated over the years. I am hoping this repair will be noticeable once completed.

I see that struts are available at a variety of locations. E.g. Tirerack, Rockauto, Amazon, etc. I am struggling to determine what parts I need to order so that I can do the job over the weekend and not be forced to order more parts later.

I know I need to order the front and rear struts for the car. I know what those part numbers are so I am not concerned about that. My concern is what else do I need to replace while I have them disassembled? E.g. Boot, mount, bearing plate, etc?

It looks like at the very least I want to replace the rubber mount that is visible under the hood. I believe there is also a little bit of float with original struts on the car. I am not sure if this includes the bearing plate or if it is a separate part.

Any suggestions on what I should replace aside from the strut assembly itself?

Here are some of the parts I see that are offered by KYB from the Tirerack:

GR2 Front assembly# 339015
GR2 Rear assembly# 334228

Front strut mount #SM5568 (How does this differ from SM5143?)
Front strut mount #SM5143 (Same question as previous part?)

Front boot #SB127
Rear boot #SB105


I appreciate the help!

take a look at my post here or just in general read the whole posting. this should help you some with some part numbers if you decide to go with quickstruts!

I would go with the monroe strut mounts. Take a look under the car and see if the boot is still in good shape. If it is then go ahead and get new ones. Check out rock auto. They always have a 5% discount floating around the web.

Thanks everyone. I started adding up the parts and it is getting pricey. Struts, strut mounts, boots, coil spring insulators, and coil spring seats. I am sure if I went into a shop they would probably just replace the strut itself and possibly the mounts. I was trying to avoid throwing away all of the existing components and just replace what was needed. The quick struts look appealing when I compare prices if I decide to replace everything individually.

Are the quick struts lesser quality when compared to OEM?

My initial intentions were to replace the struts and get the car aligned. I am getting some cupping on my Bridgestone uni-directional tires and everyone claims it is the alignment. I am not convinced since I had the car aligned before I put them on. The car has 109k miles on it and the tires along with alignment were performed around 65k miles. I almost believe it is solely a problem unique to the tires themselves. I rotated around every 7000 miles and some tire folks claim that is not enough to prevent noise and issues with wear when running uni-directional tires.

I almost tempted just say screw it and put on a new set of tires that are not uni-directional and forget the rest. Aside from the inside cupping, the car drives straight and the tires appear to wearing evenly. The car does ride rough and it does seem to have excessive movement when there are dips in the road. If you do the simple bounce test, the car passed that with flying colors. I truly believe if the car failed that simple test it would be obvious that there was a problem.

The boots and insulators should be fine unless you can see a torn boot.

The monroe quick struts don't get a lot of love as those who have them say they are too soft. KYB also offers quick struts.

If I were you, I would just get the KYB's and the monroe strut mounts.

Cupping is from worn shocks/struts. Alignment wont fix that.

ZZPerformance.com has all four ready mount strut/spring assemblies with (4) KYB struts (GR2 or AGX)
(4) ZZP lowering springs
(4) New strut boots
(4) New Rubber isolators (spring pads)
(4) New Monroe top plates
(4) Antipogo washers
for $789.99.
My car sits visibly low in the rear and has excessive inner wear on both rear tires. Also, when I turn hard right, if I roll over any bumps, I hear a noise like the tire is rubbing the wheel well, so I just want to get these assemblies for the whole car and then get new tires.

Browse the zzp website and I'm sure you'll find a huge wishlist of necessity and mod parts you'll drool over. My brother just found and bought a 2000 GTP coupe with only 20k miles and we added a 144deg innercooler and I think 3.4 supercharger pulley along with a modified computer, different ratio rockers, front and rear strut tower braces, stronger front sway bar, and redesigned lower intake manifold gasket. With all that, the sucker is really fun to drive! We also ordered, but have yet to install a bigger exhaust downpipe, higher flow front exhaust manifold (to prevent piston chipping due to high boost), and a 12 inch front rotor and and caliper kit. None of this counts as advertising right? I'm just sharing my experiences and source for parts...

There are cheap Quick struts on Rockauto/Amazon/Prime Choice. Though Prime Choice never seems to have what I want in stock.

IMO, GR2's are hardly worth the extra money for whatever 'improvement' they may have over economy struts.

Quick struts can't be beat for the price. All new mounts, springs, struts, bushings/bearings/bumpstops etc for a few hundred bucks for all 4.

If your stock springs are old, they're weak, and the ride is still gonna be chit after you replace the struts. I replaced my struts and reused my old springs, regret it. Tried to save a few bucks and ended up throwing away whatever I spent on the struts because it still rode bad afterwards.

Here's an update on the struts... I ended up ordering most of the parts from Amazon with the exception of a few parts that were not available which I got from Rock Auto. All the parts were from KYB. I replaced struts, mounts, isolators, etc... I just did the front today and it wasn't to bad once I figured out how to compress and remove the spring. The hardest part was removing the nut which holds the mount to the spring. I used an impact wrench after realizing that I was not going to get it off with hand tools. Actually removing them from the car was very easy. I did have an issue with installing them and could not line up the lower strut mount holes with the knuckle. Once I figured out that I needed to loosen the stabilizer bar end links it was easy.

The only thing I am somewhat concerned about is the front of the car sits higher than it used to as it is easy to tell since the rears have not been changed. Will the front settle a bit? I am planning to do the rears next weekend.

The front will settle a bit, but not much. It's cause your front ones aren't worn out anymore and your rear ones still are.

An impact is the only way to go for the central nut. I'd hate to use an allen key and wrench to do it.

Additional updates...

I replaced the rear struts this weekend. It wasn't any more difficult than the front but I will say that it was tougher to use the spring compressor clamps considering how wide the rear mount is compared to the front. Here our some my concerns and observations after completing the install.

One, I noticed that the right rear of the car is still noticeably lower than the right front. The left side both front and rear look about even but if I had to measure the gap in the wheel well I would have to say the it is a little less than the left front is.

Two, the right rear rubber cover that goes over the top of the mount in trunk area barely fits. Meaning the mount appears to be sitting very close to inside of the mount area thereby leaving a very small gap which is preventing the rubber cover from fitting on correctly. The left rear does not have this problem. I wonder if I need to try and loosen everything up and try to pull the mount towards the outside of the car to allow the cover to go on easily. I know there is some play in the tower mount holes but I am not sure how much. Btw, the mounts are KYB and they are specific to each side.

Three, when I push on the rear of the car with the trunk open it is very easy to push the car down as compared to the front. I am sure the front has tougher springs considering the car is heavier in the front but I would expect the effort required to push the front down vs the rear to be similar. In my case the rear is very easy to push down. I am wondering if the springs could be bad or sagging in the back which would make it is easier to push down along with the issue I am seeing with the rear stance of the car.

Any ideas?

Some people opt for raised springs for the rear because of this rear end sag issue we get. It's possible your springs are worn out. Out of curiosity, has it ever been involved in a collision on the side that is slightly off?

No accidents that I am aware of. I have owned it since 2006 and got it with 30k miles on it. She has 110k now.