Max Blast

My left rear is starting to sag again.

oh well, there goes another $0 and 15 minutes of my life.

expl0rer

Thanks! Right back at ya!

As much as they look cute in the front seat, I dont let ours in the front. No seatbelt, I'm guessing, for the dog. It's a deadly projectile in an accident. A 95lb sack of potatoes will do serious damage, and be damaged seriously. And some days he moves ust like a sack of potatoes in a mild and easy corner or lane change. I drive like an 80 year old with bad vision, no glasses, slow reflexes and mild confusion over the multitude of warning sounds coming from modern cars these days. All because of the 95 lb dog. Other drivers are probably sending me lots of love in the form of blessings, until the dog hangs his head out the window, and then they get the point of my driving.

I think it might even be illegal here to allow your pet in the front, but there are plenty of people who do it. Some even have their smaller dogs on their laps. I can't imagine what the airbag will do to both driver and pet if it were to deploy.

expl0rer

This is something which bothers me a bit about Arnott. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it seems that their failure rate might be higher and having to do the same work every so often isn't very appealing. Rear airbags are easy, but the shocks require panels in the cargo and third row area to be removed. That's a 30 min to 1 hr job and plastic being brittle as it ages is just another small disaster waiting to happen.
And then, the fronts which are even more involved. I'd like to do a job and not have to do it again in a year or five.

eric_in_sd

Boy hate to drag a thread off topic too far, but: I made tether straps to hook the dogs' collars on to the cargo area's D-rings. For the next I will get the dogs chest harnesses with the anchor point between the shoulder blades. That's a big dog, and I wouldn't want it bouncing around the passenger compartment, either.

A mesh cargo wall would help, too.

eric_in_sd

Yeah it's pretty much looking like it ought to be Bilstein throughout.

One thing that irritates me about Arnott is their fetish for replacing the compression nuts on the air lines. I stopped doing that after the first one in which I scratched the air line taking the nut off.

expl0rer

Incidentally, I did the same for the Bilstein I installed. Just reused the one from the MB airbag. No issues with fitment and it holds just fine. I think the reason all manufacturers want you to replace is the tendency to overnighter most nuts by hand and there is very little room for error on the airbag. I use gentle force and once it stops turning, I stop tightening. I don't have a torque wrench or socket to fit the nut with the line, although I could make one just like the oxy sensor sockets. But meh, start the nut by hand to make sure you don't damage the thread on the bag, hand tighten as much as you can and then continue gently with a wrench till it won't turn any more. It takes a few turns with a wrench before air starts coming out, so there is some room to play too. I don't know how many full turns, though. It doesn't need to be tight all the way, I don't think, but I go as far and not a hair further.

To remove the ring, I used a plastic spackle from Home Depot to spread it enough till it fell out. You coild use plastic computer repair tools too. I have plenty of those but ddint think of it at the time and it's a dirty job under the car so I'd rather keep the inside tools for inside jobs. Metal anything would be risky.

expl0rer

I'm contributing to the off topic discussion too, so I'll stop. Last post on the pooch.

Great ideas about the tether and harness. We use a harness already, but the dog is not tethered. It would make it a challenge to restrict his movements and still allow him to hang out the window. Not saying that it's safe to allow him, by any means. Something like the seatbelt's locking function with abrupt tension would be ideal.

The cargo net will catch him going back or forward, for sure. We don't have any. I'm relying on my "parental" move extend arm to stop the dog from going forward. Maybe I'll lose an arm doing it. 95 lbs of force coming through the gap between the front seats vs right arm.

The headrests are extended in the second row to act as a barrier between second row and cargo area I think it's time to at least get a cargo net for the back. Hello Amazon!