Blown Coilovers?

[IS5]

My coilovers feel like they have been riding more bouncy and a little less stiff. But looking at the coilovers there is no fluid or anything. Whats the best way to tell if they are blown and is there neccessarily fluid that would drip on the outside of the shock?

[HKSpeed]

couple of ways i know of without removing the shock/strut:

1. drive on the freeway/highway and have someone in another car look at the wheels. if the wheel is bouncing up and down like a dribbling basketball, the shock/strut is blown.
2. push down on any corner of your car to see how easy it goes down and come back up. blown shock/strut means you can push down relatively easy and bounces up rather quickly. this method is harder to tell since springs rates will vary the amount of bounciness.

[fullspool]

Oil on the shock is only an indication of blown seals but there are other components that can go out like the shims inside. You can blow out the compression but still retain dampened rebound as well. The best way to check is to put the car on jacks or a lift take out some spring preload unbolt the top plates and push in on them to check if the compression is blown, rebound is blown or possibly both.

[fullspool]

Also so there's no confusion. when I said take out some preload, I mean spin the spanners way down so there is space between the top of the spring and the bottom of the top plate. this way you can cycle the shock. It should be hard to compress and should slowly uncompress itself without the help of the spring.