I came to an interesting relationship between my commute and my shocks. I’ve had 3 cars in my 6 years commuting to Work/University (Both on university property). In all 3 cars the shocks started to leak.
The first was the 2005 Crown Victoria which with 40,000 miles on it. I did a couple years before leaking bad in the rear shocks. Then within a year were leaking on the replacement rears (they were Monroes though).
The second was my 2005 Corolla Le with 120,000 miles on it. They started leaking after about 1.5 years.
Finally my current vehicle is the 2011 Camry Le which I got last May with 121,000 miles on it. Now its at 142,000 and the front and rear are leaking.
So I’m wondering what it causing this. Obviously none of them were new when I started and two had high miles so it could just be age and mileage. I’m also thinking it could be my commute with is a mix of city and highway but I live in Southeast Michigan and the roads are really bad on all parts of my commute. Also the crown vic I drove the absolute shit out of because I hated it and was in a very bad way mentally and really did not care at all about that horrible car or myself, so I drove it hard. Therefore those ones could be entirely on me. The Corolla and Camry I really try to baby, I don’t accelerate hard most of the time, no hard corners, careful at railroad tracks and potholes but not super slow crawling on them either.
All three also had small wheels with wide sidewalls. Anyway, I’m wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this before I install new ones probably next year. I was looking at KYB struts all around as that seems to be what Toyota used from the factory. I want the strut assemblies as I don’t have the proper equipment to rebuild and am worried about safety. Is there anything else I could do to make them last longer?