smurfslayer
Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. We’re hunting sasquatch77
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If the shock dampens the spring motion, the system works. If the spring keeps boing-boing-boinging after a bump, you replace the shocks. You can see that, and feel that.
I do mostly agree about the “hard and fast” guidance to rebuild or replace the shocks at 50k miles. That said, I would point out:
How do springs wear out?
How does the shock oil wear out?
And yes, I agree use case has an effect on how fast you get to “worn out” but just because you baby the truck doesn’t mean the assembly isn’t moving enough to fatigue.
As you point out, the wheel/tire combo is 100 pounds-ish and the truck is 3 tons.
I’m not outright disagreeing with you here, but I would point out that unless you’re comparing your truck to another truck that has just gotten new shocks, you really don’t know for sure that you’re feeling the symptoms of worn shocks. You can be lulled into a false sense of security on whether the truck is riding right or not if you don’t have a comparison vehicle.
Your truck may well be fine, but it could also have some signs of shock fatigue that are subtle or onset very subtly over time and you’ve gotten acclimated to them.