TallassJonG

While leaning against my car about a month ago while filling up I noticed that right before the pump turned off my car suddenly dropped about a half of an inch maybe a little more. I thought someone walked up and pushed on the car but there was no one there. Tonight I saw it physically drop about a half an inch. I am sure its due to the weight of the gas but does this mean I am having issues with my shocks? Should I see the back end drop?

lunchbox_89

i've never seen it drop, more felt it slowly go down when leaning against it..

my guess would be your shocks are NFG...

neilownz

Struts might be shot. Miles?

Andrew91PGT

Mine does the exact same thing. 05 gxp 75,000 miles

TallassJonG

89k

TheJPGXP

Just the car settling, most cars do, unless they have really stiff shocks.

vroom_vroom

iTrader: (5)

they all do it you have any idea how much 17 gallons of gas weighs the back end is gonna drop a bit

TallassJonG

I know its gonna drop with that much weight in it. I said that in my original post. What concerns me about it is the actual drop all at once.

Dom87SS

iTrader: (3)

Mine does the same. Seemsvit gets so many gallons then drops, it's not a slow settle, you can physically see/feel it drop every few gallons. It's kinda weird andvfreaked me out a little when I first got it. It did with the stock and lowering springs.

ramairetransam

iTrader: (18)

about 102 lbs

vroom_vroom

iTrader: (5)

it slowly builds up, till the force overcomes friction so to speak

nmp0098

I feel the same thing. There actually is an engineering term for what you are feeling: stiction. Static friction coefficients are generally higher than dynamic (viscous in this case) friction coefficients. Once you overcome the stiction of the seal between the two cylinders, you can feel the viscous friction take over.

The seal flops in the direction it is being dragged if there is enough force (visualize the windshield wiper dragging back and forth and how it flips over during the direction change). If you lift the car up and then down right before you fill up, which will flip the seal so it is sliding and not dragging, you might not even notice it happening. I'm going to have to experiment some myself...