dust boots necessary?

[sparquelito]

Hi guys and gals.
New poster, long time fan.

I had my front struts replaced yesterday at a local tire store.
After I paid up and left the joint, I stopped for some fuel at a nearby gas station.
I took the time to turn the front wheels and inspect the work they had done, while the Baja was filling up.

Much to my surprise, the left strut dust cover was in place correctly, but the right strut dust boot was missing altogether.
I went immediately back to the tire store, and asked the service manager what the hell was the deal.

He and the mechanic who had actually done the work reported to me that, when I had dropped the car off the day before, the original right strut was missing the dust cover in the first place. "It must have fatigued over 90,000+ miles of driving, and simply fallen away over time."

I scratched my head, and had to admit that, although I keep my Baja clean, shiny, and in good repair, I couldn't honestly recall seeing whether the original strut had a dust boot on it, when last I washed and detailed the vehicle.

Me: "So, you just put the new strut on, and didn't install a new dust boot when you found the old one missing?"
Mechanic: "No sir. The struts don't ship with the dust boots and upper mounting hardware. And we don't keep universal dust boots around here."
Me: "Aren't I doing the strut harm by driving around without a dust boot on it?"
Manager: "Heck no. The strut will be fine without it, and you'll never know the difference."
Me: "Don't you think it would have been a good idea to tell me about the dust boot situation before you took my money and allowed me to drive away?"
Manager: "Maybe. But the reality is that the dust boots aren't really essential to the good life of the strut, so we didn't think it would matter."

I am still scratching my head.
Was I being fed a line of bull$hit?
Is the dust boot necessary or is it not?
Should I order a new dust boot and take the Baja back to that shop and make them install it?

Thanks in advance.

[WillGT]

that doesn't make any sense at all. I mean my last car which was a Wrangler didn't have boots because of the axle/suspension style. The Baja if I am not mistaken requires them, doesn't that protect the joints and keep the oil in on them?

[picklebill]

Are you talking about the dust boot that goes onto the shock absorber part of the strut? If so, it seems weird that the boot would disappear, as it is inside the coil spring. I would hammer on the company a little more that did the work.

Bill

[bulwnkl]

I confess to not studying the boots you refer to on the Baja very carefully. With that in mind, I'm not accustomed to those boots protecting against dust. They're not sealed (again, if these are like the normal ones I'm accustomed to). They're more like a stone guard, so that if a rock gets thrown up it won't scratch the shaft, thereby causing it to abrade the seal (and ultimately destroy it). The mechanic was telling the truth that struts don't normally ship with these boots, so if you didn't/don't have one, you'd have to buy it separately.

While I see your point of view, my guess is that most shops would take considerable grief from a lot of customers if they bought and installed a replacement boot. I think that many people would believe that it was a 'bogus' charge or something. If it were me, I'd certainly prefer to have that boot in place. If it wasn't there, though, and I had to pay the shop to more or less replace that strut again (labor to remove, install the boot, and reinstall), I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about it. You could always find one, split it, put it on, and glue the split sides back together. ?