While my front left damper doesn't seem to be leaking, I have noticed that there is a minute buildup of oil near the top threads, thus causing lots of road debris to get stuck up there. While the car handles great on smooth roads, when I hit a significant bump on a hard right turn, it almost feels like the steering is loose. Am I just being paranoid? Is there another likely cause for the sloppy feel when I hit a large bump under a right turn at speed? Ideas?

Edit: These are off-the-shelf JIC FLT-A2s. While the suspension is very stiff, I don't remember it feeling like this when hitting severe road imperfections several months ago...

 

A blown damper will usually cause the car to feel really bouncy, and perhaps a bit softer. The dampers job should be to "calm" the suspension in the up and down movement. Loose steering feeling? Not so sure about that, hit anything lately?

 

I've hit some potholes, and a nasty manhole cover, but all my ball joints look fine. Just when I hit that bump in a turn, the damper doesn't feel "right." On the track, it seems fine, but the track has a much smoother surface than DC roads (reminiscient of Warsaw after WWII).

 

im not very knowledgable about this, but hopefully this will help.

when i used to have my accord, i blew my dampers and there was visible leakage. i would prolly just suggest wiping up the damper and checking it daily to see it any oily stuff returns.

also, if you blow your dampers, your car will oscillate up and down quite a bit i think. u know how when u hit little bumps it just goes down and up once (i love that feeling btw ),
well if your dampers r blown, they will most likely go up and down continuously for a longer period of time. kind of like you are on a see-saw.

hope this helps. good luck!

 

It's a bit tougher to tell when one damper may be blown. Worn shocks are evidend when a car tends to osilate after hitting a bump. When only one is blown, the other three compensate and mask the problem. If you can really fee a difference coming from that corner, swap the front shocks from side to side. If the same side still feels soft, then it wasnt the shock. If the problem moves to the other side of the car, then it is the shock.

 

That's a good idea, perhaps I'll swap the dampers and see if the problem switches to the other side. I've had blown shocks on my last car, and having such a stiff spring on a MacPherson setup, I fear that the problem can be masked easily.