There is a slight vibration/shimmying when I get to around 70 mph to 75 mph. Firestone says I need to replace the struts for 1,000.00! Funny, it didn’t start doing this until after I had them put new tires on which they tried to balance 4 times. Now they claim the tires are balanced and it is the struts that are broken. What happens if I don’t get the struts fixed?
second opinion. should take 5 minutes for an unbiased shop to tell
oh, and year and mileage on your Saturn
“What happens if I don’t get the struts fixed?”
You’ll save $1,000.00.
Get another opinion from a different tire shop. The description you provided sounds more like tires than struts.
How many miles on the car?
76,000 miles
Before I knew any better I once bought a set of tires at Sears. I had to go back there about 4 times before I could convince them that one of the new tires was bad (car constantly pulled to whatever side this tire was on). Sometimes you just need to persist.
A second opinion is certainly in order and you might have to keep pestering Firestone if the struts don’t turn out to be a problem.
“What happens if I don’t get the struts fixed?”
If it is the struts then you will damage the tyres.
They need a new tire balancer or a new guy to run it… Struts will never cause a vibration! The struts are not rotating @ 70mph, only the wheels/tires! If you bought the cheapest tire they had, yea its the tire…still could be balance.
I have installed new tires that cause a car too pull,at sears, goodyear invicta back in the day.
Have seen in weird cases when you lift up a car, an inner CV joint slides out of its normal home(the 3 rollers) and never goes back to where it is worn in…can cause a vibration…
Its not the struts!
While it’s not terribly common, it is possible for a strut to fail after reaching maximum extension from being raised into the air on a life.
Sometimes if a strut has a really bad spot a bounce test may be applicable. Other times the only way of knowing is by disassembling the strut and checking the strut action by hand. Going this far of course means they should be replaced anyway.
A grand sounds a bit high for struts unless all 4 of them are involved and even then, might be a bit high for an outfit like Firestone.
As an FYI, Firestone has been very well known to upsell a lot of things so whether you really need struts could be debateable.
Before getting into the struts heed the advice of the other posters here and have someone else check the wheel balance first.
There’s always the chance that whoever was doing the balancing was not the sharpest tack in the box or the balance might have needed to be recalibrated a long time ago.
They need a new tire balancer or a new guy to run it…
This was at Sears. They get the guy from mens wear to balance tyres between his shirt customers.
While struts will not directly cause vibration, part of their job is to dampen vibrations.