Hey Hangman, welcome! I can use that tool as well for an upcoming project. Subscribed.
Which assemblies are good? I was looking at Bilstein and they don't make them for his application or mine, and Monroe is not what it used to be. Thanks.
If you're only compressing springs once a year or less, sure. If you do this work often at all, buy a wall mount. Good ones can be picked up for ~$100 on FB marketplace or Craigslist. I've bought and sold a few and kept my two favorites.
Well, this IS Garage Journal, so...
It has 114,000 miles on it. It was owned by my fiancé’s father who is now 94. He doesn’t drive anymore and gave her the car. It’s in Florida. His mechanic did look at it. He said the tie rods are bad. I feel the shimmy when the vehicle is driven. I will replace both the inner & outer tie rods the next time we go down there. I’m guessing at 114,00 miles the struts should probably be changed. My friend on this forum knows a master mechanic who is originally from Germany. He recommended the Lemforder struts. I was going to order everything from rock auto. The Lemforder struts do not have the coil springs. That is why I was asking about a decent spring compression tool for a DIY person. I don’t have a shop or budget for a large spring compression tool.If you just want to throw money at it instead of labor, sure get the quickstrut type assemblies that include the spring and mount, but it's really not a big deal to just get the loaner tool from an auto parts store and replace only the strut.
With the vehicle being 2007, many vehicles this age don't need a new mount yet, but you should inspect it and see, similarly you only need new springs if the current ones are sagging. Granted, being able to tell if the mount bearing is shot is sometimes difficult to determine until it's off the vehicle and can be checked for smoothness.
You might want to see if local auto parts stores carry the mount so once it's disassembled if you find it needs replaced, you aren't waiting on mail order (or Amazon if you have prime and can wait a day for delivery in the middle of the repair), can just get it right away if the cost difference isn't much, and you might want to check in a Caravan owners forum to see how much life they're getting out of the mounts, if it's likely to need one.
*Most* vehicles can go through at least a couple pairs of struts before the mounts are shot but a loaded minivan maybe not. Then again, I would consider a loaded minivan to need its first pair of replacement struts before now, already due for 2nd set unless it has few miles on it for its age.
You're way overthinking this.
Have you checked local auto parts stores to see if they rent it out? I recently did my front struts with all OE/OEM parts less coil spring (Lemforder being one of them) on my BMW E46 and normal hook type compressors would not work to relieve the tension because of how short the coil spring was. The Macpherson type that Qualitytools mentioned above was the type of spring compressor that was recommended. I called around to different shops and labor prices were reasonable since I had all parts off the car (~$40-$60 IIRC). It would have been only a 30 minute or less job but they were all booked for weeks in advance. Recommendations for an $800 shop tool is ridiculous.
it probably has a fair # of years left in it, unless the strut towers are rusting out. Otherwise, IMO KYB > Monroe but my main gripe with Monroe is they seem to lose dampening, wear out to a marginal state too quickly then stay marginal for a long time.A 7600 for $138.99 which is the exact same price they list one of the OTC's....sure feels like a scam site.
Hangman- I'm thinking this might be the way to go. My buddy agrees is you're looking for a faster less costly job.
de-reviews.com