Quick Shocker Test?

Not really,

Hot may indicates that the shock is converting energy into heat and dissipating it into the atmosphere, i.e. the shock is working.

Excessive heat mat also indicate that the shock is being asked to do too much at which point it becomes ineffective/useless.

Without sophisticated instrumentation the average Joe is never going to know.

Phone around amongst the shock absorber supplier/fitting shops until you find one that can actually do on "on car test" and provide a print out of the results.

As an alternative you can get a fair idea by conducting a bounce test yourself.

Start bouncing a corner of your vehicle so that you achieve a rhythmic pattern then let go. Any more than one and a half oscillations after ceasing to bounce the car means that your shock absorber/damper is not up to scratch.

Ian

I dunno, usually oil on the outside rather than inside is a good indicator.
To not get hot it would have to be pretty empty.

I just did the Stezlecki, and couldn't figure what the oily smell was around my RH rear wheel, as the seal was OK. The shock got softer and softer.
Otherwise if the standard shocks have done over 100K on road or 50-60 K on corrugations , you can be pretty sure that new shocks will improve the car.
The Boge shocks I put on my Rangie are only 20-30k old. So there are now 4 Bilstiens to go on, as well as some Polyairs.
Regards Philip A

Pull your shock off the vehicle and compress it by hand then let it go.

A pretty good indication that the shock is in good nick is if the force required to compress is uniform and the same for the way the shock extends when you let go of it.

Any jerkyness or no resistance or failure to fully extend means its either stuffed or well on its way out.

Also compare LHS with RHS.

Hot / cold is a good indicator if you have been belting along a dirt (rough) road for an hour but not if you've just driven from home to the shops and back. (Cold meaning its stuffed...again compare all 4 shocks temps)

Hot or cold...depends on what design of shocker you have, some will run very very hot (Bilstiens) and others will run warm.

Mono tubes will always run hot and twin tubes will always run warm.

As said above the only way to tell is pull them out and get them tested.

Depending on how you can feel your car react some people can tell is something is wrong long time before it shows up as a fault.

A good racing car driver will tell is the car is not rights.