Just used this on a 2009 Silverado 1500 to swap shocks. Short review - worked fine.Longer version - these 2 piece units are shady as heck to use, the nature of the design just leads to shifting and possible bars flying off of a compressed spring. Understanding this, I took extra precautions to use them safely. As soon as you get them, clean them off, and grease/heavy oil the threads and operate them a couple times. This will get all of the imperfections off so they operate smoothly. The last thing you want is one binding on threads, making you think it’s tight, then you end up tightening the other side too much, and kaboom, you’re dodging a metal rod that shot off of a spring. I did this procedure and they worked nice and smooth.Make sure you put them directly opposite each other on the coils, so 9 and 3, 12 and 6, however you’re choosing to hold the strut to do the work. Tighten them EVENLY, and SLOWLY, without using an impact driver/drill/something else with a motor. I got them snug, and did 4 or 5 turns of the ratchet each side, so the spring compressed nice and evenly. They felt the same while I was tightening them down, no binding, nothing to report other than smooth operation.For safety, I laid the strut on the ground, put a 2x6 over it, kneeled on the 2x6 while operating the ratchet with one hand and holding the handle of the spring compressor with the other. I also had a heavy blanket over the kaboom side of the strut, so if anything went wrong, nothing was flying up into my head.You only need to compress the spring enough to create a small gap for the top hat of the strut to come off, nothing more. You aren’t trying to compress the spring together, that would probably be a disaster if you managed it. I used a large screwdriver to keep checking for play at the top of the strut, once I had it, I took off the bolt, slid the shock out, moved everything over to the new shock, and popped it back in, no messing around.When you loosen the compressed spring, same deal, EVENLY, and SLOWLY. It’s not a race, it loosens up nicely if you greased the threads.I have only used this on a Silverado 1500, the springs in a truck are massive, and these did just fine using hand tools. If you’re using these on a smaller vehicle, you should be fine with the same.The safest thing to do is take your parts in to a shop with a proper compressor and let a pro do it, but if you choose to be a driveway mechanic, do it safely and understand what you’re messing with.Product did a great job, probably about twice the size of the rental models you can get from a local auto parts store, feels sturdy. No physical bolt to keep the clamps on the spring coils like other models have, but the built in hook extends up far enough that the coil shouldn’t be able to slide off if you’re using it properly.