I purchased a set of DMC struts that did in fact bend the strut mount. (as well as some cracks in the fiberglass) I assumed that the difficulty was due to out-of-tolerance positioning of the mounts from the factory. Ultimately, I lathe-cut one ball socket on each strut to compensate for the extra length. I went looking through my pile of old parts for the original struts this week to compare lengths...sure enough, the originals are shorter! I wish I had noticed or was informed before they went in! Rustproof