Did you know the importance of the shock absorbers of your car in ensuring a safe ride in your car? Most people don’t. 

Most people think that the function of shock absorbers is limited to ensuring that the bumps on the road are not felt inside the cabin of the car.

While such people are not wrong, their knowledge is incomplete. Factory shock absorbers also play a crucial role in keeping your vehicle stable on the road, and making sure it steers smoothly and precisely.

However, since shock absorbers are designed to soften impact and are robust pieces of machinery, their wear and tear is often overlooked by car owners. 

What most car owners don’t realise is that driving their car with failing or faulty shock absorbers can turn out to be a pricey and possibly grave mistake.

A lot can go wrong when you drive a car with failing shock absorbers. Here are just a few of the many, many possibilities:

A car with failed shock absorbers will offer a bumpy ride. Even when the condition of the road is fine, a car with failed dampers may ‘dive’ when the brakes are applied and ‘squat’ when accelerated. Similarly, if one of the shock absorbers has failed, the car may ‘lean’ in that direction.

While these may not seem like serious problems, the slight leaning or dips of your car mess significantly with physical factors like aerodynamics and body roll.

These problems may not become seriously apparent at lower speeds, but can result in sudden loss of control if your vehicle is travelling at high speeds.

Many car owners don’t realise that their car’s steering assembly is part of their car’s shock absorbers. If there is a thumping noise coming from the front end of your car every time you hit a bump, it indicates that there is a problem with your steering assembly.

If, for instance, the problem is with the sway bar (or anti-sway bar), chances are you may simply lose all function in the steering wheel if you hit a pothole a bit too hard.

Such a mechanical failure can lead to dire consequences. 

If the spring of your shock absorbers break, the ride will be rough and uncomfortable. However, if in such a situation, there is an increase in the weight inside the cabin (because of more passengers), the car will collapse much more than normal. 

If the cabin weight causes the cabin of the car to collapse too much, it may hit the tyre and cause it to come apart while the car is in motion.

The other parts of your car are not designed to withstand the impact of uncontrolled bumps and vibrations caused by the failure of shock absorbers.

This means, in the long run, failed shock absorbers will keep making the situation worse for other parts of your car until you have to pay to repair them. Moreover, this negligence will also reflect in the evaluation of your car when it is time to sell.

These are just a few of the myriad of things that can go wrong because of the failure of one small component of the shock absorbers. To ensure your safety, along with the safety of other people on the road, it is our responsibility as drivers to make sure the safety features of our car are in working condition.

Besides the safety factor, addressing the failure of shock absorbers with urgency is simply a wise financial decision.