Shock absorber survey

After having 3 failures with Rancho adjustable shocks I went with Bilstein and never looked back.

The metering valve on the Rancho's failed. Rancho replaced them under warranty and I sold the replacements on eBay.

JumboJet wrote:
After having 3 failures with Rancho adjustable shocks I went with Bilstein and never looked back.

The metering valve on the Rancho's failed. Rancho replaced them under warranty and I sold the replacements on eBay.

Yep and I had Bilsteins and the fronts had a complete meltdown driving over a washboarded road. I switched to Ranchos and never had a problem. I think you just have to buy what works for you. What works for some won't work for others.

I should add it was like pulling teeth to try to get Bilstein to warranty their shocks.

I also sold the Bilsteins on EBay and bought Ranchos.

Got rid of the shocks.. works much better.

And the savings in weight was a bonus.

Ah......just like the survey, eh? :B

SugarHillCTD wrote:
Opinions and results are all over the place

I think you read a different set of comments than I did. It looks to be the vast majority of the answers to their Question of the Week was Rancho 9000s or Bilstein 4600 or 5100.

That's somewhat predictable for anyone following the threads here.

jimh425 wrote:

SugarHillCTD wrote:
Opinions and results are all over the place

I think you read a different set of comments than I did. It looks to be the vast majority of the answers to their Question of the Week was Rancho 9000s or Bilstein 4600 or 5100.

That's somewhat predictable for anyone following the threads here.

No- same set of comments.

Just read that some had bad results with Ranchos and switched to Bilsteins and all was good.

Others had Bilsteins then bolted on Ranchos and heard angels sing.

A few thought that OEM were great and everyone else wasted their money.

A couple ignored the question and stated that their airbags were better.

Yeah I read the same set of comments. :h

i got a quote from Sears for $300 for rear Rancho 9000 installed. Is that in the ballpark? And please don't say to do it myself. They would be on a GMC.

Only one at the end with KYB MonoMax? The rest don't know what they are missing.

Got my Rancho 9000's installed. Missed out on the 100.00 shocktober discount because Oriely's delivered the wrong 5000 series first. Then a week went by and it took a couple more days to install. By then I had a receipt for outside the time frame for the discount. Then I got with busy with othe things and it just slipped by me. Oh well.

Anyway, It took all of 5 minutes to change the rear shocks each with no jack required. Ten minutes for the fronts. Performance wise, they make a noticeable difference in smoothing out the ride quality and greatly lesson the side to side sway. I set them to 5 and have not felt a reason to increase the setting. Two thumbs up and the price even without discount was reasonable about 100.00 each.

realter wrote:
i got a quote from Sears for $300 for rear Rancho 9000 installed. Is that in the ballpark? And please don't say to do it myself. They would be on a GMC.

Ok I wont but.. I assume Sears a tad higher on just the shocks (can be bout for under $100ea, if Sears 110 quote would a little less than 1/3 for installation for 2 shocks...±$80 or 40 per shock.
I dont know what current shop rate is, but if you cant you cant, or dont want to.
but found(4) 9000XL free ship for #340...just a compare.

Only question is, although can be set at a happy medium, to truly take advantage of the adjust-ability requires getting to them to turn the knob. I have to lay on the drive to get to my rear shocks.
Mark