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"Your Suspension Parts Expert..."



Suspension Alternatives is the Suspension Parts Experts. For more than 10 years, we have been assisting the automotive community discover the best money saving deals on all of their suspension parts. With our massive selection of Suspension Parts, Low Price Guarantee, No- Hassle Return Policy and our crew of Certified Suspension Parts Experts to help you anytime you may need it. You can feel assured in your suspension purchase today.

Suspension Alternatives builds and resells car and truck suspension parts. We offer suspension components like coil springs, air suspension, leaf springs, sway bars, bushings, shocks, and struts to enhance your automotive performance or to replace your OEM suspension parts.

Below you will find a description of each of the important suspension parts for various types of cars and trucks.



SUSPENSION SPRINGS
Suspension Springs are the suspension system's primary line of defense. When you drive you will certainly encounter bumps and dips. These variables within the surface of the street or the backcountry road send force up through the wheels. Bumps send your wheels skyward, and dips draw them down. The suspension spring's task is to absorb this power and carry your wheels back to a condition of equilibrium. You will find several standard types of Suspension Springs used on contemporary vehicles: Leaf Springs, Coil Springs, Torsion Bars, and Air Springs. 

SUSPENSION BUSHINGS
Suspension Bushings connect your expensive suspension components together, serve as protective seals to connection points, and are vital to how they function.  Suspension Bushings work like cartilage in between the bones in your body. They make a perfect connection between the different parts of your suspension system.  This results in perfect suspension alignment and drastically better handling.

SUSPENSION COMPRESSORS
The Suspension Compressor is the differentiating part between standard suspension and self leveling suspension. Self leveling suspensions are often offered in luxury cars are updates. The suspension adjust according to the driver's input; the suspension compressor does the adjusting.

PERFORMANCE PROGRAMMERS
Many people think that performance programmers are only used to unleash your engine's hidden horsepower and torque. While this is their primary job, performance programmers also have another important function: speedometer recalibration. Installing bigger tires or a different rear-end gear set throws your speedometer out of whack, which can lead to a ticket and a day in traffic court. A performance programmer recalibrates your engine's speed sensor to give you an accurate readout of your velocity. Check out our Performance Programmer Research Guide for more details. 

NERF BARS & SIDE STEPS
Stepping up into a lifted rig can be quite a chore, especially for young and old passengers. Like a built-in ladder, nerf bars and side steps help hoist you up and down from your cabin. Learn more by leafing through our Nerf Bar & Side Step Research Guide.

SKID PLATES
Gaining ground clearance is one of the biggest benefits of a lift kit. But, even the tallest trucks and SUVs are vulnerable to damage down below. Like body armor for your underbelly, skid plates protect your powertrain and suspension components from scrapes, dents and gouges.

BLOCKS
A vertically challenged motorist might tie boxes to his shoes to reach the pedals. Likewise, an undersized vehicle can easily add a couple of inches with a set of blocks. These spacers fit in between the rear coil spring and axle for a fast height hike that does not affect stock ride quality.

SPACERS
Front coil springs and struts are becoming increasingly popular on trucks and SUVs, and they can be lifted with spacers the same as rear springs are raised with blocks. The spacers sit on top or below your front springs to add a couple inches without dramatically altering your stock ride characteristics.

SHOCK ABSORBERS (DAMPERS)
Springs are great at absorbing energy, but not so good at dissipating it.  The suspension part required to help smooth you're your suspension system is called a Shock Absorber (sometimes called a Snubber).  It is a device that controls unwanted spring motion through a process known as dampering.  Shock Absorbers slow down and reduce the magnitude of vibratory motions by turning energy of suspension movement into energy that can be dissipated through hydraulics.  A Shock Absorber is placed between the frame of the car or truck and the wheels.  The upper mount of the shock connects to the frame, while the lower mount connects to the axle, near the wheel.  When the car wheel encounters a bump in the road and causes the suspension to "contract and expand" the energy of the suspension is transferred to the Shock Absorber.  All modern Shock Absorbers are velocity-sensitive.  This means the faster the suspension moves, the more resistance the Shock Absorber provides.  This enables shocks to adjust to road conditions and to control all of the unwanted motions that can occur in a moving vehicle, including bounce, sway, brake dive, and acceleration squat.

ANTI-SWAY BARS & ANTI-ROLL BARS
Anti-Sway Bars (also known as anti-roll bars) are used to give a moving vehicle additional stability.  An Anti-Sway Bar is a metal rod that spans the entire axle and effectively connects both sides of the suspension.  When the suspension at one wheel moves, the Anti-Sway Bar transfers the movement to the other wheel.  This creates a more even ride and reduces vehicle sway.  Specifically, it combats the roll of a car on its suspension as it corners.  Today, almost all cars are fitted with Anti-Sway Bars as standard equipment and if they are not kits make it easy to install the bars at any time.

TRACTION BARS
Traction bars are hefty rigid bars or tubes of tempered steel with pivoted brackets on both ends. The front ends of the bars connect to the front spring mounts on the vehicle frame. The rear brackets bolt to the bottom of the drive axle. Traction bars keep the axle from twisting backwards while it forces the drive wheels to turn forwards, completely eliminating leaf spring windup, and keeping the rear drive wheels forced down to the pavement for superior traction.

BALL JOINTS
In an automobile, ball joints are spherical bearings that connect the control arms to the steering knuckles. More specifically, a ball joint is a steel bearing stud and socket enclosed in a steel casing. The bearing stud is tapered and threaded. It fits into a tapered hole in the steering knuckle. A protective encasing prevents dirt from getting into the joint assembly. Motion control ball joints tend to be retained with an internal spring, which helps to prevent vibration problems in the linkage. Commonly found in automotive throttle linkages, throttle body set ups, these are also widely used on construction equipment, the end of gas springs and also in children's toys.
 
BUMP STOPS & BUMPERS
A bump stop is a rubber placed in the shock absorber piston to prevent it form bottoming out.

STEERING PARTS
Steering Parts make up the steering system that allow you to safely control your vehicle.  There are two basic types of steering systems, standard mechanical steering and rack & pinion steering. The standard mechanical steering can be either power assisted or non-power. Rack & pinion is almost always power assisted although there are rare cases where it is not.  Standard mechanical steering uses a series of links and arms to insure both wheels turn in the same direction at the same time. It hasn't changed much in all the years it's been used and is quite simple.  Steering Parts will include power steering, steering box and steering gearbox, rack & pinion, steering knuckles, spindle kits, steering stabilizers, control arms, idler arms, and pitman arms.  

I-BEAMS
I-Beams provide your truck a level of lowering while improving the handling. Factory ride quality and critical front end geometry are maintained.

STRUT BRACES
A strut bar, strut brace, or strut tower brace (STB) is a mostly aftermarket car suspension accessory to provide extra stiffness between the strut towers.  A strut tower is a reinforced portion of the inner wheel well and is not necessarily directly connected to the main chassis rails.  There is inherent flex within the strut towers relative to the chassis rails.  A strut bar is designed to reduce this strut tower flex by tying two parallel strut towers together. This transmits the load of each strut tower during cornering via tension and compression of the strut bar which shares the load between both towers and reduces chassis flex.

HANGERS & SHACKLE KITS
Hanger and Shackle Kits are designed to relocate the leaf springs to a higher position, and will allow you to lower.  Kits are completely removable and replaceable for easy bolt-on installation, and come complete with all necessary hardware. 

DRYERS 
Dryers