Stupid question I know, but what is the difference between a shock and a strut? I have a 94 EB Extended 4.0L AWD van...would this van have shocks in the rear and struts in the front?

 

It has shocks both in the rear and front. The main differance between a shock and a strut is the shape because the strut serves the purpose of BOTH a shock and a strut . Cars with struts DONT have front coil springs either.

 

nope, shocks front and rear... The basic difference between a strut and a shock is that the strut is a structural part of the suspension where as a shock is not.

edit

beat me to it! However, i believe you are wrong about cars with struts not having coil springs. They still have coil springs, they are simply mounted over the strut.

 

Thanks for the responses.

 

Correct....on my 72 Toyota Celica the strut and shock are one piece. About two thirds of the way up is a saucer shaped piece of metal which holds the bottom of the coil spring. The top of the coil is compressed against the top of the fender liner and the unit is held in place with three nuts and bolts. To service the strut, spring compressors/retainers have to be attached to the coil and the spring and strut have to be removed as one piece.

 

Sturts are used in MacPherson's front suspention from '70s. main plus of this type of suspention it is simple, requires not much room, easy to use with FWD. And ball joints life is twice longer. This suspention is used not only in cars, but in some vans, like Voyager, VW T4-T5, Ford Transit short, Mercedes Vito.... But old good long arm/short arm is better for heavy cars and vans.

 

One problem with struts is that they can not provide the same amount of dynamic camber change that a double A-arm can. It may be important only for sports or performance cars that have to handle very well.

Another problem is that side loads from normal suspension forces can cause the damper unit to fail prematurely. The one exception to this is Bilstein's struts.

Yet another problem is that they have to be made very strong, being part of the suspension structure, so they tend to be very heavy, adding to unsprung weight.

So while replacing three components with one sounds like a good idea, it falls a little short in most implementations. However, companies like BMW and Mercedes seems to do pretty well with them in their sports cars.