ATDTools 7585 Master Macpherson Strut Tool

I used these for a 1998 BMW 323is which is a relatively small car. They were solid and I didn't have any concerns that they were slipping or anywhere near the point of failure. It takes a big socket with an extension to fit the head, or a whole lot of of work with an adjustable wrench without a socket. It took tightening them very close to all the way to get the spring compressed enough. That's because the ends are fat to be strong so while one side can go right down to the end cover, the other side ended up on a part of the spring too close to the cover so it had to be put on the next ring down. So by the time it was loose enough that I could unscrew the assembly, the center of the spring was very compressed and the last ring extended on both ends. Three of these in a set would have probably have worked much better, though probably at 50% more cost, so I'll live with having the crank them down a lot.The sides do have to be tightened alternately in order to keep things relatively even. Early on, I cranked one side down too much and it put the other side at an angle so I couldn't get the socket on there. So had to back it off and do things more evenly.I'd feel comfortable using these on stronger springs, though I'm not sure what the limit would be as I don't have vehicles with larger springs to try out.

I used these to replace front struts on 2006 Toyota Sequoia 4x4. The factory springs are heavy duty so I wanted to re-use them. These compressors did the job and worked as intended. I did put small amount of machine oil on threads before using.

Barely got the job done and with a considerable amount of fussing and risk taking, on the part of this tool. The grabbing heads were too small for the gauge of coil and wouldn't sit on the coils properly. They barely fit on my stock 2006 Tacoma springs and fit even worse on the new Old Man Emu springs I was putting in the truck. As a result, in both cases the safety pins could not be engaged and with the larger Emu springs, the compressors ended up sliding around the spring radius and drifting closer and closer to one another, overloading one side. Most annoying, was that once we finally got the first new spring compressed on the 4th try and slid the shock into the mount on the truck, we couldn't get them off as the springs had pinched one of the heads between two coil loops. We ended up having to take the whole thing out, recompress everything more and then were able to get it off. All in all with my passenger side strut, we had to compress, decompress and try again 6 times before giving up on installing the strut and had to drop the ball joint and slide the new shocks in while uncompressed. The tool was able to compress the springs to where we could put the new top caps on but every part of it was shady and scary. Given my experience, I think this tool would likely be just fine for a small car, like a civic or a corolla or something like that. Definitely not a tool I would use on my light truck springs again.

These are a very well made spring compressor. Then only reason for 4 stars and not 5 stars is this; the dimensions of the springs that these will fit is nowhere listed which would be very helpful. I bought these to use on my 2002 Toyota Tundra Limited ( awesome truck by the way) front struts.These were not the right size for the springs, they were too small. Being in a situation where I had no option I had to use these compressors and although the coil spring was too big to fit into the slots and thus the safety pin could not be used because it wouldn't go over the coil spring, they held tight and did the job. If oiled up liberally as directed, the bolts turn easily. I used Mobil One 75-90W gear oil.

These spring compressors will get the job done, but they have a lot of room for improvement.For one, the "fingers" that clamp onto the spring coils are too short, so you wind up with the bolt head being too close to the spring to fit a socket onto. You end up loosening and tightening one side and then the other to get clearance or else using an end wrench for an eternity of turning.Another problem is the bulkiness of the fingers. On a progressively-wound coil spring they simply won't fit between the closely-spaced coils, so you have to shorten up and just fit it to the lower, wider-spaced portion of the spring. Might not work for some applications. And of course there are only two, when you really should have three on a spring, but I knew this going in.For all that they are sturdy, and the locking pins are a nice touch Makes you feel a little safer with all that stored-up energy straining to remove your head or other appendage.As with all of these type of spring compressors it helps to clamp some locking pliers (Vise-Grips) onto the coils to keep the compressors from walking downhill and ending up next to each other.

2006 Toyota Tacoma 4WD- These gripped the springs safely on my heavy duty springs. Only issue was the safety pins could not slip past the large dia. coil.I really didn't like that but the tool blocks conform to the spring coil well. Really just the lip of the pins intefere on the spring coil and prevent sliding past to safely lock against the coil to to it's job. ATD tools Mfg. take note for large dia. springs. I added a tie down strap around coils when compressed for safety in case of failure as Toyota Maintenance on you tube recommendeds. Really knowlegeable mechanic.It's a heavy duty tool and feels like it-it's hefty, but it appeared that the threaded rod was yeilding with a slight bend but the tool worked.Spring removal is dangerous! Have all your new parts lined up and ready to limit the compressed spring exposure time.This is for advanced mechanics in my opinion.

The product its self is great, just use it to put struts in my Volvo, the problem was that one the Keeper pins did not have its locking ball bearing and would slide back and thus fail in its job to be a safety feature because I failed to notice it before I used it I am not going to send it back. This has served to further my belief that Amazon can not be trusted to send products that are first rate, but that I must inspect everything they send me, which is already as little as possible.