(HELP!) How do you know if your front Bilstein shocks are really shot (85 300D)?

[Carrameow]

How do you know if your front Bilstein shocks are really shot (85 300D)?
Usually worn shocks are easily to find. Your car flops up and down the road. When you press and heave up and down on your car’s front end in the driveway, your car recoils like it is dancing with you.
If you are really unsure, do the same thing to a car with good shocks. You can barely get it to recoil a Half Hop. My Mercedes 300D really fails the heave test and the road test..
When I went to heave on my front end today, my Mercedes 300D jiggled and shook so easily, I swore I was surprised. On the road it flops up and down.
The thing that has me totally confused is that after I jacked up my car and removed the shocks, the rods had tons of strength in them. I don’t think even Arnold Schwarzenegger could have pressed those rods down without using two arms. Usually a dead shock has a lifeless limp rod without any resistance.
I swear my shocks are shot, but I’m wondering could it be something else? Springs? A front end problem? I looked carefully under the car as I shook it and everything seems fine.
Has anyone ever experienced this with Bilstein’s before? Can the rods still resist your testing them considerably by pressing on them with lots of exertion & still be bad?

[t walgamuth]

a bilstein will lose its ride quality long before it will fail the bounce test. they dont lose their ability to resist but they lose their gas, and the result is a very bouncy ride.

so if it is riding bouncy they need replacing.

tom w

[300Dguy]

I wondered the same thing when I went to replace my shocks (85 300D). The old ones were hard to compress and I wondered if I had wasted my money. Then I tried to compress the new Bilstein gas HD Shocks I purhased. They were much harder to compress, however the difference in ride once installed was remarkable.

[Hit Man X]

If you don't know how long they've been on there, change them. I have Gabriels on my MBs and for the cash I can't be happier. $22/ea with lifetime warranty, check them out.

Ride quality changes big time