icspres

Thanks in advance. My front air shocks have met with an early demise due to an unfortunate bit of unexpected offroading on a recent vacation. Front end bounced up and down violently half a dozen times. Now they will sag overnight to empty, takes hours, but in the AM the fenders are practically touching the tires. She's a 2012 with 73k miles. I'm planning on trading her in soon or private selling, truck is immaculate, perfect paint. So this was really unfortunate but it is what it is. I have two new shocks on order, cheapies so hopefully they'll work out, but how many hours is appropriate to charge for the swap? My mechanic is telling me 3+ and I'm not buying it. Everything I've heard is that this is a milk run, simple, quick swap. What should I be paying a corner? Again, thanks in advance.

eric_in_sd

Why do people do this sort of stuff? If you'd put in Arnott, you could brag to the buyer that the front struts have a lifetime warranty. You'd get more in added purchase price than the difference in cost.


Why not? I've done it several times and 3 hours for both sounds legit.

icspres

Thanks. I couldn't care less about bragging to the next owner about the Arnotts. She's getting traded in on a new Aviator this fall. I may try private sale, maybe, with a backup of dumping it at Carmax instead, but there's no scenario where I want to even broach the topic of the shocks being replaced at 73k miles.

My mechanic was quoting 3+ each corner, sorry, wasn't clear on that. But thanks again, sounds like you're confirming the estimate is high. Certainly seemed it.

eric_in_sd

If you put sawdust in the transmission, it will shift quieter, too.

Everybody who is buying these things with >60k miles knows the air springs are a problem. You'd be better off telling them it's a wear item and it's already been taken care of.


Karma's a b-. I'm just saying. With an attitude like, "lol I banged it up good when I accidentally went off road at highway speeds", it will catch up to you. Trust me. </sermon>


Six hours is excessive, absolutely.

icspres

Eric,

You don't know me. I'll say this once. My cars, all of them, are meticulously serviced. Implying I'm the type that would sawdust a transmission, well, there's one in every forum I guess. I don't spend much time here because my wife drives the Mercedes. Chick car. But the only thing that's gone in that tranny is the recommended flush at 40k miles. The paint is without swirl, sealed with ceramic. Oil changes every 5k miles. So, anyway, thanks for confirming 6 is excessive. But jeeze man, WTF. And FWIW, following your logic ad absurdum, shouldn't I be doing OEM replacements just to brag to the next owner? The next buyer of my 8yr old GL isn't going to go like "wow, let me pay more for this old MB because it has Arnotts". If they're new and working, I'll get it sold and have zero on my conscience.

Have a nice day.

eric_in_sd

Whatever, dude, I'm saying your attitude sticks out like a sore thumb. Just saying. Best of luck to you.

icspres

"My" attitude? Wow. You're reading what you want between the lines because you like confrontation, probably have some street creds around here and enjoy trolling.

Miguk_Saram

Wow! Kinda catty, ladies. Break it up.

I've done my fronts on both my E500, and my GL450. 45 minutes per side, maybe a bit longer when you factor in loosening the support brace, raising the vehicle, and removing the tires. Full disclosure: the first time was a witch! One of the strut retaining bolts just didn't want to come off and, well, curse words everywhere.

In any case, 2 - 3 hours sounds about right.

eric_in_sd

I bet you could put Fix-A-Flat in the air fitting at the top. Jack the car up so it's at normal ride height, and the goo would settle at the bottom of the fold, which is where the leak usually is. It would last the duration of the test drive, that's for sure.

Max Blast

73 k miles is in the failure window, you're simply being a good steward of this vehicle and replacing the shocks at the first sign of leakage, in order to preserve the other components in the system.

The job probably pays three hours...a side. A decent mechanic should be able to beat that by a healthy margin. If you're so worried about being taken by this laborer, why don't you try it yourself? The fronts area way easier than the rears, and those took me about 1.5 hrs a side; including removing the interior walls.

icspres

Thanks. 73k and 8yrs, I'm guessing age would have some part to play. We were fine until we ended up offroad on a beach in NC a few weeks ago. We had to make a u-turn, GPS was acting up, and the ruts that all the vehicles had dug in the sand coupled with having to keep a steady pace to avoid getting stuck had our front end bouncing violently a few times. I gave it a good check before getting on the highway back, motor mounts, fluids, etc. This didn't show up for a week after we returned, but it had to have hastened their demise. The weird thing though is I'm thinking ECU now because the shocks don't bleed out every time it sits, only occasionally. So I've actually put the replacements on hold for the time being, will monitor, take it get the codes.

My mechanic is great with my Cayenne but I have caught him a time or two running up the labor a bit. OTOH he only charges $80. I'm not too worried about it, was just looking for a sanity check, may call him out gently if he bills me for 6 or more.

As for doing it myself, I really can't. I did some work on cars into my 20's but that was decades ago. I'm in my 50's now, have arthritis in my thumbs, too. I'm better off doing what I do and paying an expert to do what they do. Really my only option, and that's okay.

Max Blast

Nope. You did some physical damage, either to the bags themselves which; depending on how it sits, results in an intermittent leak down issue.
The other thing you could have done is cracked or disconnected a level sensor arm, or broke the sensor itself giving the ecu a bogus bum level signal and possibly triggering it to try to “level” itself.
9 of 10 times the bags are the culprit and cause other secondary failures if not rectified ASAP.

if it rights itself every morning after having leaked down over night your level sensors are fine, and the ecu is making the correct level adjustment commands.

icspres

Okay, thanks for that. Damn. I'll jump start the shocks order.

EDIT: Ordered, back in line. Should have them early next week. My wife is supposed to take it to NJ in less than two weeks. I'll try to get up to my mechanic in the next day or three to look at the sensor arms.

Max Blast

And while you're at it, put in some proper bags like Arnotts or Bilsteins.

eric_in_sd

This is actually common. The bags fold under, and so the cracking occurs at the fold. I mentioned this in my Fix-A-Flat comment - which I was only partially joking about. As a result, the leakage has odd behavior, depending on what the ride height is when it's parked. It might deflate parked facing downhill, but not uphill, because the ride height is subtly different - so the cracked section is squeezed under by being held straight. It doesn't remain in this status for long; within a few weeks it will be deflated completely in the morning, until finally the pump can't keep up and so it burns out.


You won't see any codes, at least not to my knowledge.

But here's an easy way to test: Lift the suspension (off-road mode), and then spray the bags with soapy water. You'll see froth if there's a serious leak, and "stoner spit" where it's slow.


Side note: Dunno about your vintage, but I had a really hard time getting my '07 stuck in the sand. You probably needn't have worried.

I'd go for the six hours with a mecho that you like. $80 an hour just ain't that bad.

And remember: Arnotts have a transferable lifetime warranty.

icspres

Good stuff, Eric. Thanks.

icspres

I have one Arnott on order, and now my mechanic is thinking valve block because he's seeing the same behavior we were, works perfectly and then occasionally completely drains the front right down to nothing, then start back up and it's fine again, potentially for several starts and stops, and then eventually will happen again. Thoughts?

Max Blast

Still points towards the bag. Depending upon how it comes to rest, it may leak down or it may not.
If he has a DAS system have him run the diagnostic software to check the valve block, individual bags and central reservoir.
That'll tell him where to look for the leak.

icspres

So I ordered a shock from www.shockwarehouse.com before reading the reviews . While it was enroute, as I said earlier my mechanic started thinking valve block. So I reached back to Shock Warehouse and said clearly, if the shock is on the way let it come, but if it hasn't left yet let's pause it briefly and try the valve block first. The guy there, fellow named Carlos Escalante, lit into me about how much time he's spent talking to me (he did talk to me, but most of our conversation was him complaining about his customers. I probably should have walked away at that point but oh well), that he'd "grab" the box, take out the part, put it back on the shelf, and was clear there would be no fee for his seemingly excessive efforts to please me. Wow. I told him I'd probably end up buying both, but to send the block first but the guy just has a really bad disposition. I decided then that I'd had enough and ordered the valve body elsewhere.

Valve body arrived and my mechanic had taken off to deep creek lake for the long weekend....sigh. So Tuesday, he goes to pull it into his bay to do the valves and low and behold, the front right airshock leaks down to nothing very loudly right in front of his eyes. So good news, yay, validation. We know what it is, what you already knew and that's fine. I get the return teed up with CarID for te valve block and call Shock Warehouse back, where's the shock? These idiots actually called the package back from fedex, against my very clear written instructions, and then charged me like a 20% restocking fee which I have in writing they would not. So now I have the shock on order from CarID as well. Shock Warehouse unresponsive. appropriate feedback online, and now here. But yeowza, I had a look at their feedback various places after leaving mine and they clearly suck...lol. I have four corners and a pump on not only this car but my '06 Cayenne Turbo S as well. Idiots...lol.

eric_in_sd

lol I read your Yelp review.

Man, I hate to sound like an Arnott shill, but - they've bent over backwards to support me. 10/10 would buy again.

icspres

I've always heard great things about Arnott. I was going to go cheap because I'm planning on selling the truck this fall but you talked me out of it. The difference isn't worth the risk or the karma. Just FYI, I complained to Arnott about these idiots as well and Arnott actually took the time to call me. More than was called for, very little $$ just really pissed me off. But yeah, not just a great product, great people. I'm glad I'm throwing them my dollar votes.

eric_in_sd

Hey, that's great to hear.

Sorry about the trouble with ShockWhorehouse, btw. What aggravation. Companies like that don't last long.

TBH I owe you an apology for my attitude in the first place. Truth is, it cut close: I've done borderline unethical things in the past, and now regret it. I now wouldn't do anything to fix up a car (or whatever) that I wouldn't happily tell the buyer about. I may not have always done so good, but at least I done my best.

icspres

No sweat. I don't disagree with you. I've always very, very well maintained my vehicles and never sold anything with any sort of issue. I wouldn't have been happy doing something substandard either. If something cheaper works properly, I'd consider it. But anything cheaper than Arnott had a higher rate of defect and I don't do my own work. I have to do it over once, and I've paid for the better shock.