The front struts, or sometimes called front shocks, dampen the ride of your W204 and help keep the wheels in constant contact with the road. When they begin to wear, ride quality and vehicle handling suffers. If you notice that your vehicle is not smooth over bumps or feels soft when cornering, this could be an indicator of worn struts. To check your struts, push down on the front corner of your vehicle (the side you want to inspect the strut on). When you give the front corner one good push down, it should bounce up, then slightly down and stop. If it continues to bounce, the struts are worn out. You have the choice to replace your struts with a factory spec set or install a more performance oriented strut and spring. A performance set of struts can greatly increase the handling of your W204. You can also replace all four springs on your car with performance springs, giving it a slightly lower stance and stiffer handling. If you are planning on installing performance struts or springs make sure you install them in matching pairs. Installing mismatched struts and springs can actually result in worse performance.
Modern struts are built differently than the struts of old. Some require being put into a specific press to compress and remove the springs. We have lots of spring compressors in our shop but could not find a pair to safely remove the springs. If you can compress the spring safely you will need an impact gun to remove the 21mm nut on the top. You can still save yourself a lot of money by removing the strut assembly and reinstalling it yourself, but if you have concerns over safely removing the spring take it to a suspension shop for this stage.
All of the hardware nuts and bolts are single use only. Mercedes microencapsulates their hardware with a binding agent. Even though lots of people clean up the threads and apply some blue Loctite and reuse the bolts, Pelican recommends you purchase all new hardware.
You will need to jack up the car and remove the front wheels to perform this job. Please see our article on safely jacking up and supporting your vehicle.
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Time: 4 hours
Tab: $200 to $1,250
Tools: 18mm open, 21mm socket :www.pelicanparts.com/Mercedes..., E16, E14 socket, large flathead screwdriver :www.pelicanparts.com/Mercedes...
Parts Required: Strut assembly :www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin/..., spring :www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin/...
Hot Tip: Don't let the wheel hub hang after removing the strut
Performance Gain: Restore a tight feeling to the front end of your car
Complementary Modification: Upgrade suspension
Applicable Models:
Mercedes-Benz C250 (2012-14)
Mercedes-Benz C300 (2008-14)
Mercedes-Benz C350 (2008-14) :www.com/catalog/SuperCat/W204...