Chime in with your aftermarket suspension failures

So I've searched and read a lot of the Icon vs King vs Fox threads and have read countless testimonies. One thing I noticed a couple times is someone mentioning X brand fails more than Y brand, or X brand and Y brand fail more than XY brand. I couldn't find legit numbers (and I don't think this will yield 100% legit numbers) but figured it would be nice to get people to chime in on one thread with their failures so people can research it easier.

If you have had a failure please list specifics like what failed, how it failed, activity during failure, mileage at failure, age of product, manufacturer support, etc...

Also, lets keep this civilized if possible. Nobody is attacking your sticker on your truck, just weighing in with experiences. Sometimes shit happens and the vendor support is an important aspect. If you feel like debating, the Ebay bumper thread is waiting.

Thanks

 

99.999999% of the time if your suspension "fails" you did something stupid. This covers any decent brand (non eBay black hole junk)

 

From the stories I've read that doesn't appear to be the case. People who claim light off road use have busted seals. Last one I read dude was doing nothing more than just street use and had a shock fail.

 

I had a spring failure on one of my Icon coilovers in normal street driving. The fracture occured on the bottom-most coil. Noticed a slight height drop (about the equivalent of a coil pitch) on one corner of the truck when I pulled into my driveway. I sent a photo to Icon along with a copy of the invoice, and Icon sent me a replacement spring on warranty (lifetime). I then took the coilover to a local shop with spring compressor to swap out the spring.

Closer examination revealed the spring end was not ground parallel, so the last coil was seeing excessive bending and eventually cracked.

 

If you live in an area with road salt, the rod ends on All-Pro's HD sway bar links become corroded to shit after one winter.

 

Here for the stories

 

My Fox 2.5 failed at close to 100K with lots of offroad use. No complaints there. It was a seal that went. Not a warrantee issue. When I called them in early December, they told me the turn around on rebuilding them would be about 6 weeks. I had no choice but to buy a new set, because I can't have my truck down that long.

I ended up having a warrantee issue with the new set I bought. One of the springs was weak, and required excessive preload. People should know that Fox does not do any of that mail out a new part stuff!! It doesn't matter who you talk to, or how many pictures you take, or who verifies the problem. I explained to them the whole situation, just bought my second set of their shocks, loyal customer etc.....no dice. You have to send the bad unit to them, so that they can determine whether it is covered or not. They don't give a rip about loss of use of your vehicle.

A local shop is now rebuilding my old set, but rebuild kits from Fox have been on back order. We have been waiting, going on 9 weeks for the parts to rebuild them. Still short one spherical bearing. Bottom line, I like the shocks, but I have no warrantee. I have to take full responsibility for keeping them going so I can use my truck. No reasonable support from Fox.

I'm so heavily invested in them now, that I'll keep them. I bought a set of used springs for $75, and swapped out the bad one on my new set. Thank goodness for TW classifieds! All is good now.

I really do love the way the shocks perform. They took a lot of hard use, but I won't buy Fox again....ever.

 

Thanks for the input guys. Too often when searching you find parts of the story, or a story lacking detail. Really helps getting it all summarized.

@badger You were able to get 100k out of your shocks without having a rebuild? That's quite impressive.

 

Icons up front, fox in the back on my truck. King in the front and Icon out back on my girlfriends truck. No issues for either of us so far.
Her rear shocks needed to be rebuilt after serveral years of use, but that's to be expected. Did the proper maintenance and had them rebuilt and good to go.

Had bilstein 5100s that lasted a good 100k before I replaced them too. No issues there, but there were definitely due for replacement after 100k.

OP, so the poll is more useful you could add an option for "have not had an issue" to show you the percentage of how many people have a failure vs how many people do not.

 

A lot of failures are also from bad installations. Shocks maxed out, ride height at or near the top of their travel range, no bump stops or too short, etc.
Anyway, subbed for stories

 

Broke 880 OME spring. Normal driving on paved roads. Hit a mild pothole (by Michigan standards) and this was the result. Still has the factory paper tag on it.

 

Front long travel with king 8 inch and stock rear with AAL and 5100

 

Oh not that kinda failure hmm well I'm in process of building my bed cage and throwing some 3.0 back there

 

Good idea. Trying to keep the thread clear of too many posts of people with new suspension chiming in with praises since there are plenty of those threads. I added an option for people who have had zero issue with the caveat of having at least 25k miles on them. Too many people out there with fresh suspension that could skew the results.

 

It was about 98K, yes. Fox recommends a rebuild every 50K, so maybe next time I will just tear them down before I get a failure. I have an ARB bumper up front, and I bought the suspension because I drive a lot of rough ranch roads. Yea, I have no complaints about the performance or life span of the shocks. The spring rates and the dampening were spot on for the Tacoma.

The problem is that these specialty aftermarket items cannot be had at the local dealer or parts house. When you have a breakdown, you have to rely on quick response from the manufacturer. Either that, or you buy two of everything and keep your owns parts store. It's one reason why I try to stay clear of critical aftermarket parts. The factory suspension was just completely worthless though.

 

Actually, I would like to hear how King handles things when the chips are down.

 

Yup. Same thing happened to mine within a season. Their anodizing is crap.

Hahahahahaha... I sent them pics and it took two months of back and forth messages for them to decide what to do. They decided to replace them if I would pay for another pair up front on my VISA, then they would reimburse me once I sent the old ones back. I would have lost a fortune on exchange rates and shipping, so I said "F*ck it!" and painted them with Krylon Rust Tough semi gloss paint at the same time that I redid my undercarriage, and now I spray them with Rust Check to stop the squeaking.

 

That is exactly what they count on us doing. Saves all kinds of expense in warrantee repairs. I have heard of All-pro being good about this, so maybe it's hit&miss. I will say that one company that was very good about getting me what I needed on a warrantee thing was SPC ( Light Racing)

 

My icon top hat cracked! Stay away from Icon.

 

I had a buddy that was complaining his suspension felt funny after he put on 5100's see one blow up as it was being taken off the truck. The thing just emptied it's guts as he was trying to loosen the top bolt to have a look at it. Kind of sketchy for a near new part. At least it stayed together enough not to send the spring flying somewhere. Lots of complaints up here lately around Billi's including a brand new set of their 8112's puking oil at -30c. I wonder if they changed something as of late?

No one here seems to complain much about Fox, OME, King, or Radflo. Some Icon complaints and Billi issues but that's about it.