Shocks

They should only "bounce" through 1.5-2 cycles when you give them a significant push on each corner of the vehicle (deflecting 2-3")

Yes and when they do in fact give up and go 100% you will know all about it. The vehicle will bounce around and feel very strange. You will bottom out on shopping centre speed bumps and feel car sick from the bouncing around. There are many levels of failure however and testing using the procedure above or remove the shock and manually push it through its full travel in both directions (by hand), it should feel to have the same movement in both directions. There should be no soft spots or grinding, clunking, noises and the like.Regards
ExplorOz Team - David
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Always working, not enough travelling ;-)

Phil, While they might "look" okay, the shocks may be failing when they get hot. At 96K, if you've done a lot of off road/gravel travelling, you have doubled the average life of most shocks.

If you're planning a trip in near future, a new set may give a much improved ride. Buy best you can justify, as cheap ones are often that. Any leaks, however minor, mean they are sick. Hooroo...

I was told by a friend who works at Munroe that shocks under normal operating conditions should be changed every two sets of tyres...Just countin the days till July 5th. *Cape York trip*

i work in a tyre place and most of the work i do is suspension your right when you say suspension places tell you they are stuffed and need replaced first thing i look for is leaking if theres no leaking(some leaking is to be expected) i do a push test i will disagree with the old 2 bounce idea push down on a new patrol designed to be soft . depending on the 4wd you have coils are usually easier to test as leaf do a lot of load handling i push down and see if the feel firm pushing down and look for rebound .shocks pushing back up as most 4wd have gas shocks if that all seems ok i drive around the block and while driving at about 40ks i turn the car from side to side quickly and make sure it isnt swaying heaps because you might have soft shocks but tight coils and that will usually tell if there soft.as for different shocks we use monroe/pedders/ome or anything else people would like to use. we not aligned to anyone i use monroe in my gq only because im tight and didnt want to spent the extra money no trouble yet dont do any real hard stuff but they do get a work out at times.pedders/ome/monroe come out of the same factory but with there own specs oil/valving ect.i cant see the need in spending big $$$$$ on the likes of koni/rancho(american made for american conditions ive seen a few set of failed ones)unless you are planing on doing heaps of hard off road maybe then koni/bilstein but as most 4wd spend 90% of time on the road i wouldnt hesitate in using Pedders/monroe/ome from what ive seen pedders do seem a little better but thats my opinion i may have opened a can of worms but thats the way it goes lol. hope this wasnt to confusing