How do you tell which suspension was used when building your car?
I have an early 98 SE 'Tour. When I ordered shocks and struts from our favorite place, they checked the part #. Thanks to sharp eyes at shox.com, they questioned the hand written part # 's in their catalog. KYB admitted the catalog was wrong (235612 and 235613 are for the Mondeo suspension, and 235620 and 235621 are for the Cougar based suspension).
KYB says it's all 'Tours built after 5/1/97. Quote from KYB:
"For vehicles built thru 4/97, use the 235612 and 235613 struts. The Contours
built from 5/97 are the same chassis as the Mercury Cougar. The earlier
Contour (1st generation) are the same chassis as the Ford Europe Ford
Mondeo."
Is there any way to tell from the VIN to confirm? I really don't want to pull the car apart and find out I have the wrong struts.
Corey? Anyone? I tried the VIN decoder:
http://www.contour.org/FAQ/showfaq.cgi?misc/vindecode but didn't see anything in here that would help.
