How to choose shock absorbers for a car

These days there are more than enough places online, at parts shops and at car markets to buy parts for pretty much any car (it's worth noting that, because Korean-made cars have been growing so fast on the domestic market, parts for Korean cars are in especially high demand). Choosing shock absorbers should start with deciding what type of shock absorber you actually need.

Specifically, the shelves carry three types of shock absorber: oil, gas-oil, and gas. These shock absorbers differ from each other not only in design and price, but also in how they behave on the road and how long they last.

Which shock absorbers are better?

There's no universal, unambiguously correct answer to this question – it all depends on your individual conditions and preferences, as well as the weight of your car.

Oil shock absorbers are the softest and most comfortable, but at the same time the most demanding when it comes to road surface quality. They're absolutely no good for aggressive city driving, but for relaxed highway cruising, on a long trip, nothing else matches them for driver and passenger comfort. Prices on oil shock absorbers are the lowest of all three types, but that doesn't mean oil shock absorbers are bad. The lower price here comes from the manufacturing technology, not from lower quality.

Gas shock absorbers, on the other hand, are the stiffest and the most expensive, and are intended mainly for sporty driving. They hold the road brilliantly in the toughest conditions, but a car fitted with gas shock absorbers turns into a "stool" – everyday driving in it is far from comfortable, and a long trip can turn into pure torture.

Gas-oil shock absorbers are often the optimal choice for most car owners and most cars, since in terms of both performance and price they sit somewhere between gas and oil. In any case, that's true for city driving and for cars in the mid-weight category.

Where should you buy shock absorbers?

It's better to buy shock absorbers from specialised outlets, where you'll be given and backed by the strongest possible warranty. This matters, because any manufacturing defect leads to premature shock absorber failure, and defects are a fairly common thing in today's mass production of parts. From a quality standpoint, the best choice is often genuine shock absorbers from the car's own manufacturer. For example, if you have a Hyundai Tucson, it's best to look for shock absorbers for it from a company that offers genuine Hyundai parts. In that case you won't even have to think about the type of shock absorber – you'll simply be offered exactly what came fitted to your car from the factory, exactly as the design intended.