I was told to put struts on a e-39 BMW (1998 5 series)they did not ask me if I thought it needed them, just said ,do it. I wanted to see what the results of my work would be so I gave the car a bit of a round the block test drive first, not so bad at all I thought. When I got the strut free and had access to the shaft I was able to move it up and down in the strut tube as there was no resistance at all. This was after I actually drove the car and was pretty much maybe/maybe not if the struts were bad. Making the call on struts has always been tough for me (unless you have everything free like I did)