Thread: 2001 GTP - Replacing Struts - KYB GR2 plus other parts?

All, I want to replace my struts on my 2001 Grand Prix GTP. It has about 110k miles on it. I am having some issues with tire wear and will be replacing the tires soon but want to do the struts before that. Once the struts are replaced I will have it aligned. The car does not seem to have an excessive bounce it sure looks like the ride has deteriorated over the years. I am hoping this repair will be noticeable once completed. I see that struts are available at a variety of locations. E.g. Tirerack, Rockauto, Amazon, etc. I am struggling to determine what parts I need to order so that I can do the job over the weekend and not be forced to order more parts later. I know I need to order the front and rear struts for the car. I know what those part numbers are so I am not concerned about that. My concern is what else do I need to replace while I have them disassembled? E.g. Boot, mount, bearing plate, etc? It looks like at the very least I want to replace the rubber mount that is visible under the hood. I believe there is also a little bit of float with original struts on the car. I am not sure if this includes the bearing plate or if it is a separate part. Any suggestions on what I should replace aside from the strut assembly itself? Here are some of the parts I see that are offered by KYB from the Tirerack: GR2 Front assembly# 339015 GR2 Rear assembly# 334228 Front strut mount #SM5568 (How does this differ from SM5143?) Front strut mount #SM5143 (Same question as previous part?) Front boot #SB127 Rear boot #SB105 I appreciate the help!

OK, I dug out the order form for my 05 when I did all the struts. I'm not going to list part Nos. as they probably are different for your 01.

strut, strut bellow, coil spring seat, strut mount, coil spring insulator

This was everything I needed to replace all the removable parts. Yes, I was wondering too if I ordered everything I needed. Rockauto had everything.

Btw, did you notice a difference after replacing the struts? Did your struts fail the simple bounce test? If so, I am sure the difference would be night and day. I am sure mine have degraded over the years but I wonder how bad they actually are.

My initial intentions were to replace the struts and get the car aligned. I am getting some cupping on my Bridgestone uni-directional tires and everyone claims it is the alignment. I am not convinced since I had the car aligned before I put them on. The car has 109k miles on it and the tires along with alignment were performed around 65k miles. I almost believe it is solely a problem unique to the tires themselves. I rotated around every 7000 miles and some tire folks claim that is not enough to prevent noise and issues with wear when running uni-directional tires. I almost tempted just say screw it and put on a new set of tires that are not uni-directional and forget the rest. Aside from the inside cupping, the car drives straight and the tires appear to wearing evenly. The car does ride rough and it does seem to have excessive movement when there are dips in the road. If you do the simple bounce test, the car passed that with flying colors. I truly believe if the car failed that simple test it would be obvious that there was a problem.

buy KYB quick strut assemblies.

Remove the old strut assembly and install the new ones.

Done and done.

Takes less time, is safer both in the long run because you now have all new components and in the installation because you dont have to deal with changing over the springs.

At 70k miles, my 05 starting developing a slight float which is an early sign and the float itself spoiled the handling. So the new struts took care of that. The originals would have passed the bounce test with flying colors. The bounce test is stupid and only serves to convince someone that they left their struts/shocks somewhere back on the road. But I was a bit surprised that I needed struts at 70k as my 98 GP at 130k had tighter struts than the 05 at 70k. Seems by 05 they were cheaping out on the struts. Your 01 might be on the good side but with 110k on them, I think it's time.

Here's an update on the struts... I ended up ordering most of the parts from Amazon with the exception of a few parts that were not available which I got from Rock Auto. All the parts were from KYB. I replaced struts, mounts, isolators, etc... I just did the front today and it wasn't to bad once I figured out how to compress and remove the spring. The hardest part was removing the nut which holds the mount to the spring. I used an impact wrench after realizing that I was not going to get it off with hand tools. Actually removing them from the car was very easy. I did have an issue with installing them and could not line up the lower strut mount holes with the knuckle. Once I figured out that I needed to loosen the stabilizer bar end links it was easy.


The only thing I am somewhat concerned about is the front of the car sits higher than it used to as it is easy to tell since the rears have not been changed. I am planning to do the rears next weekend.

Will the front settle a bit? Thoughts?

Originally Posted by Burley117

Did u buy the pre-assembled strut assembly or components and compress the spring yourself? I did my tower mounts this weekend and found the worst of it just compressing the springs to get the mount out. But my other GP sounds like it needs rear struts now...thinking about the pre assembled route.

No I bought individual parts except the springs. I did compress the springs myself. I was looking for a challenge I suppose.

Originally Posted by WhatNext

OK, I dug out the order form for my 05 when I did all the struts. I'm not going to list part Nos. as they probably are different for your 01.

strut, strut bellow, coil spring seat, strut mount, coil spring insulator

This was everything I needed to replace all the removable parts. Yes, I was wondering too if I ordered everything I needed. Rockauto had everything.

Dont want to highjack the thread but i only have one question for you "WhatNext.did you buy 4 coil spring insulaters and 4 coil spring seats.i have everything else,i have a 2005 gp and i was just wondering cause i am trying to lower it but i want to replace everything new.I have the DNA springs, KYB GR-2 / Excel-G struts,strut mounts and the strut bellow,thank you

To Valente - for a 05, the front spring seats were SM5470, coil spring insulators SM5437. Can't break out the parts #s for the rear since I went with the quick strut assemblies which had everything included.

Thank you,i hope i can handle this task

I have about 110k miles on the car and the springs. For all I know the GPs sit a little lower in rear. I honestly never really payed any attention to it in detail with the exception of now.