Hello Mr. Scotty,
I recently replaced the Front Struts on my Highlander 2016 AWD LePlus with 85K miles on it. I purchased the Front Struts from the dealer. It was a bit hard to take the sway bar from it when doing it and using the compression clamps. The dealer only sold me the Strut, no top mount. I decided to reuse the Top Mount, spring coil, and rubber pieces. I made the mistake of not aligning the car afterwards.
After driving for 2000 miles the spring has started to slide a bit from the base and whenever I hit a bump I can hear a noise from the suspension which did not happened when I first replaced it. I can see the spring is no longer on the notch and slowly sliding.
My questions are why did this happen? How can I fix it? Do I need a full assembly? Since I did not align it after, could that be the root cause? Can I use the clamps and try to align it back into it with the Strut mounted? What would you recommend.
I appreciate all you do and wish you a very good day.
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Skip ahead to the 19:30 mark to view the reassembly process. Perhaps you missed a step or something rotated out of position during decompression of the spring.? He also addresses front wheel alignment toward the end of the video.
Well first realize the springs are supposed to be sitting correctly in their little grooves that have rubber bumpers built into them. If those had worn out the bumpers. Yeah it's going to make noise now. See if you can get a schematic of the strut loan apart to see if you're missing any parts like those bumpers
Thank you for replying Mr. Scotty.
I checked and I am not missing any parts. A friend mentioned the dealer might have sold me the wrong part and that is why they started to slide.
Could that be possible? I compared the Struts and they looked the same. Should I try to compress it and realign it? Or should I just buy a new assembly? What would you recommend for auto store ?