What does a rear shock absorber do?
Shock absorbers are responsible for your vehicle’s smooth drive over bumpy or uneven roads and are an essential part of your suspension system.
Your shock absorbers are gas-filled tubes that are compressed by a piston, dissipating kinetic energy to provide a comfortable ride for you and your passengers, regulating the rebounding of the car.
How often should shock absorbers need replacing?
You can expect shock absorbers to last at least 50k miles. Your owner’s manual may specify a different mileage or duration, as this figure is only a guideline. You should also have your shock absorbers checked after heavy contact with potholes, curbs or large rocks in the road.
The law, vehicle regulations and your MOT
Car suspension is a common reason for MOT failures. Broken or faulty shock absorbers, including oil leaks, will be a definite fail at an MOT.
What causes a shock absorber to stop working correctly?
If a shock absorber is leaking fluid, from malfunctioning or damaged seals, it will fail to operate correctly.
A damaged, broken or bent shock absorber will also fail to operate as intended. This can happen through continual use, general wear or through damage from an accident.
Some of the smaller internal parts will eventually wear out, which will prevent the complete component operating correctly.
Symptoms of a malfunctioning rear shock absorber
Excessive bouncing and an uncomfortable ride
If your car is providing uncomfortable ride quality and is bouncing excessively, it could be that your shock absorbers aren’t operating correctly.
The car feels unstable
When navigating corners or over uneven ground and your car feels unstable, this could also be due to suspension damage.
Driving over speed bumps is difficult
When driving over speed bumps or raised road elements causes uncomfortable and excessive bouncing, it is likely that your shock absorbers are damaged.
If you spot signs of leaking
Any puddles of oil-like fluid on the road around your wheels could be escaping from leaking shock absorbers.
If your wheels leave the ground
If your tyres lose contact with the road when driving over bumpy or uneven surfaces, then your suspension isn’t working properly and could be down to a faulty shock absorber.
Volkswagen
Volkswagen (often shortened to VW) is a German automobile manufacturer founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front, a Nazi labour union.
Volkswagen is the flagship marque of the Volkswagen Group, who in turn is majority owned by Porsche. They own and operate a vast number of cars under other brand names—at the time of writing, they have 342 subsidiary companies.
How popular is Volkswagen in the United Kingdom?
Possibly its most well-known model of the current generation, the VW Golf, was the 2nd best selling car of 2018, behind the Ford Fiesta, which consistently takes the top spot year after year.
The Golf’s 64k registrations in 2018 added to the vast tally of 3.4million Volkswagen cars on the road today.
High quality, highly rated, appropriately priced cars
VW cars achieve consistently strong reviews and are highly respected by critics and drivers alike. They are renowned for investing more money into research and development than almost any other marque and distributing their wealth of motoring knowledge across the many partner brands under the VW Group umbrella.
The Volkswagen Beetle: The ‘people’s car’
A classic of its time, originally named the Volkswagen Type 1, it soon became nicknamed the Beetle due to its unique shape, and subsequently the bug. The unique looking car was designed by Ferdinand Porsche for Adolf Hitler, who wanted a cheap and simple mass-produced car to travel around his country’s new road network.
The new model Beetle, originally launched to celebrate the original classic in 1997, and with an updated successor in 2011, was designed around the VW Jetta platform sharing much of its build with the Jetta and Golf. VW announced in 2018 that the Beetle would finally be removed from production in July 2019.
VW’s reliability and reputation
Volkswagen ranked 17th place out of 30 car brands in the What Car? Reliability Survey in 2018. Sister companies Skoda and Seat appeared higher up the ranks at 7th and 10th respectively, while executive brand Audi a few places further down the list at joint 20th.
Recent Volkswagen recalls and reliability issues
Various recalls have been made on VW models throughout their motoring history. The following are a list of the most recent in the UK and Europe.
19/04/2019 – VW Tiguan (2017–2018)
The material used for the rear coil springs may be inadequate
13/04/2019 – VW Touareg (2018)
The suspension damper forks are defective and could break
13/04/2019 – VW Caddy (2018)
The predetermined break point in the cushion for the side airbags in on the wrong side
24/03/2019 – VW Polo (2016–2018)
On vehicles with a rear drum brake, the operational wear of the brake lining and use-related settlement of the drum brake may result in a loss of pre-tension on parking brake cables
02/02/2019 – VW Touareg (2018)
A seat belt latch may not have been sufficiently secured to the rear, right-hand seat
23/12/2018 – VW Golf, VW T-Roc, VW Arteon and VW Passat (2018)
The fitting for the headrest may have been incorrectly welded to the backrest
23/12/2018 – VW T-Roc (2018)
An incorrect adhesive bond between the upper and lower parts of the rear spoiler may have been used
20/10/2018 – VW Touran and VW Tiguan (2015–2018)
Moisture can reach the LED module of the sunroof’s ambient lighting which may cause a short-circuit
All recall information sourced from gov.co.uk data.
Free collection & delivery
