Abstract: A process is proposed for determining the characteristics of a motor vehicle's built-in shock absorbers. The vehicle is driven onto a ramp support which is then quickly removed, causing the vehicle to drop onto a base whose distance below the ramp support corresponds to the residual rebound clearance associated with the particular vehicle design; the changes in the so-called wheel contact force when the car hits the base are measured. The process is characterized by the fact that the vibration characteristics of the body and one wheel at a time are measured, the measurement results, together with the measured values of wheel contact force, are fed into the known differential equations governing damped oscillations, and the characteristic data for the vehicle structure, namely, the body- and wheel masses, spring stiffness and damping constants, are calculated.