Knowing when it is time to overhaul your car's suspension

I somehow have a theory that the suspension, especially the shock absorbers, have given up on me now.

BHPian jasjotbains recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I own a 2013 i10 1.2 Kappa 2 (before the Grand). The car has clocked approx. 50,000 kms as on date. I upgraded from the stock 155/80/13 to Apollo 175/75/13 along with Neo alloys around the 33k mark.

Almost 40k kms of this journey (2013 - 2018) have been covered on well laid out roads of Chandigarh and surrounding cities, although my daily runs were 3 kms to office and 3 kms back to home. 2018-20 saw my car cover longer routes in Tirupur, Coimbatore etc, i.e, beautiful roads again. However, I had started to notice that the bonnet part felt slightly raised as compared to the back. Also, the car seems to get bogged down at the bottom even when I sit inside. In 2020, I shifted to Hosur (poorly-designed-speadbreaker-capital-of-the-world) and I have felt that the car is bottoming out on many of the horrendous speed breakers. Till now, I have had one of the plastic cladding in the front wheel wells shredded due to my tires hitting the bumper and dislodging it from the grooves.

I somehow have a theory that the suspension, especially the shock absorbers, have given up on me now. I did have one shock absorber changed in the 1st year under warranty, but 7 years and counting, nothing much has changed from 2013 in my car.

I am getting transferred back to Chandigarh next month, and plan to give my car a mid-life makeover. The tires are still good for another 20,000 km.

Can someone suggest what all signs I need to look out to know that my suspension assembly/shock absorbers/rubber mounts have given up on me? And whether 8 years is a good enough and acceptable time for the rubber mounts to become bad? I don't mind spending Rs 10-15k on the suspension assembly if it means my car is good to go for another 6 years without bothering my pocket much.

Here's what BHPian Tgo had to say on the matter:

The signs you mention indicate towards the suspension needing work. From my experience with the Duster:

Signs of worn out suspension components:

Strut mounting bushes

• Mild rattling on bumpy roads
• Excessive jolt sound on jounce (extension)
• Visible separation of top bush when viewed from the engine bay
• Squeaky/squishy sounds mean dried out bushes
• The worn out bushes amplify the jolts throughout the body shell (increased NVH)
• Another guess - mild front to back rocking when coming to a dead stop (like at traffic lights / stop-go traffic) is also associated with worn bushes in a way

Shock Absorbers

• Bottoming out
• Car feeling sprung only on springs (reduced dampening felt on bumpy roads / floating feeling on the small and repeated closely spaced speed bumps)
• Oil leaks from shocks

Control Arm bushes

• Wheel alignment not holding
• Rattles and squeaks
• Pulling to one side
• Tyre wear even after alignment
• Play in the joints

Sway Bar & Link rods

• Rattles on rough road
• Increased body roll
• Play in the joints

Steering rack ends

• Rattles when taking turn

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.