Fox coil over adjusters NOT turning

John sold me on the whole set-up. I've cleaned up after every outing. When they froze initially I used the range industry tool and vice grips attached to slowly move them back and forth little by little until they where free. *That was a few weeks ago . This weekend I went out firmed them up a little bit . Went to adjust them back down today and the driver side high speed adjustment wouldn't move . Used the vice grip and range tool. Gave me a weird feeling like it was to easy .Usually you get to setting 1 and there's a qtr turn and it will stop turn back the other way, you get the click and you know your at the softest setting (1). It just keeps spinning now in either direction without the strength it took prior to turn it . I called Accutune , going to try and get the warranty thru Fox first . I just put in a service request with fox we will see what they say . My passenger side is pretty much the same way .
They've been on the truck since October . There's probably 500 miles of soft off-road use if that , (beach cruising, wood trail) After the first few uses you could already hear shit grinding in there. For what you pay this isn't acceptable. Idk if it's because theyre mounted with the knobs pointed down stuff is puddling under there ? I'm dumbfounded

 

Damn; I’m on the fence with which to go, King vs Foxes. The foxes sound good on paper, but real world experiences like yours have me very hesitant about them, especially since it’s the wife’s daily & while it’s mainly a daily, we intend to romp hard in Glamis. After talking to John I was leaning on the Foxes, but after reading your experiences (as well as a few others), I’m now leaning back to the 2.5 kings. My cousin has a badass late 2000’s 4Runner on Kings & my sisters long travel Tacoma also on Kings, both never an issue with their Kings after many years & hard fast paced wheeling Hmm.

Edit: attached pic of our trucks

 

Subbed. Looking at Fox setup but concerns over adjusters. Hmm

 

Fox PES here, a year without adjusting my adjusters are working perfect. I do have the range tool as well. Hope you guys get yours working!

 

How much off road use have you put on them ? Mud,water,sand ? I also have the range tool and it's not helping. Even after thoroughly washing them after every use. Do you have them mounted with the adjusters facing down ?

 

I don’t think there’s an issue with the “set it & forget it” for the Foxes, looks like there’s an issue when you want to actually adjust them which is the whole point of getting the PES in the 1st place. Heck, there’s even some girl on YT who took her Tacoma to Accutune and got the Fox suspension and same shit, her adjusters stopped working since her swag bar bashed the adjuster which faces down.

 

Just going to give you guys a update . I spoke with Brad the service manager at Fox . He said he's aware of this issue . He said to send in my front shocks and they will get the taken care of and honor the warranty. I then continued to explain to him that I have the rear shocks still in the box and that I want to avoid having to go through this again. He told me to send those also and he will get them looked at and taken care of. He didn't go into great detail on what the issue was. Sounds like its a lack of grease issue? So I will be taking the fronts off Friday and sending them in. He said about a 2 day turn around time .

 

Next time you chat with him, ask him what he’d thinks about a silicone cup cover that covers the adjusters. Figure a zip tie or work clamp to keep the cover on between setting adjustments should do the trick if it’s debris getting passed the o-ring. Kinda silly they expect a single o-ring to be enough to keep sand & dirt out from getting under the adjuster knobs.

 

Not an engineer, but as a plumbing-and-construction oriented person I'm well aware of the phenomenon of galvanic corrosion. Steel-against-aluminum is definitely going to cause it, and galv. corrosion will be accelerated by moisture. Remarkable that FOX seems to have overlooked this in the design. Has anyone tried disassembling the DSC components & lubing them with an appropriate anti-seize compound, maybe copper?

I will be moving from OEM shocks to FOX 2.5's with DSC's front & rear soon and really don't want to be fighting with expensive DSC knobs that fail after a few thousand miles.

 

One other thing to keep in mind about the fox DSC knobs:

if they are adjusted to the max soft or max stuff setting, and the shock is compressed (increasing oil and nitrogen pressure) or driven on (even street) they adjusting valves will stick and hydro lock into place. This will prevent them from turning and I wouldn’t recommend forcing them open either until pressure has been relieved. I broke one adjust this way.

A simply way to prevent this from happening is when putting the adjusters to the max soft or stiff — turn then back the other way 2 clicks. This will prevent the hydro lock.

 

Not how the DSC valve works. All the DSC is doing is metering the flow of oil into the reservoir via a shimmed port and a standard port. There is also no fluid metering for fluid flowing out of the reservoir back into the shock body so adjusting the DSC while the shock is compressed wouldn't matter.

The only way for the fluid to have any sort of effect on how difficult the DSC is to adjust is if you were trying to turn the knobs WHILE the shock was cycling. Not really possible to do since you'd need to be turning the knob while driving.

 

Wouldn’t this be considered design failure? My brother who’s an aerospace engineer would likely agree that while the design is novel, the manufacturing engineer who chose those 2 different types of metals ought to be smacked. This just confirms no matter how special these Foxes are cared for, inherent construction design flaws will inevitably cause their failure. Onto Kings it is for me!

 

Is this limited to the Factory Series Fox shocks with the blue and gold adjusters or are the Performance Elites with the gray and orange adjuster having the same issues?
Considering between Accutune’s Stage 3A Fox offerings as a future upgrade.

 

They use the same adjusters, just different colors.

 

This is just limited to the performance elite series

 

Update#2
My shocks touched down in Minnesota yesterday at 10 am. I talked to Brad, the service manager at Fox this morning. He said they've rebuilt both front shocks and repacked them. They took apart the rear shocks and repacked those with heavier duty marine grease . When asked what is causing this issue and what I could do to mitigate any future issues. He just said to keep them clean. ( I always have kept them clean )Seems like they know but just don't want to say I asked him about possibly using something to cover the adjusters.(silicone cup) He said it wouldn't be a bad idea just to make sure they are not holding dirt and sand . He told me they should last quite a while now. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens . Just thankful Fox stood behind there warranty and it was only a 2 day turn around time .Thank you to @AccuTune Offroad for pushing me to fox's directions first to get this solved. I'll leave everyone with another update once they're installed and get some mileage on them.

 

People've mentioned silicone (or rubber?) protective boots to cover the DSC adjuster nobs & keep dirt/moisture out of them. Is there a specific accessory sold to accomplish this? If yes, can someone post a link to it?

If people are improvising from generic stuff sold on Amazon/Ebay etc., please advise the diameter/length/type of material. Hopefully it's something that fits tightly enough to hold by itself & doesn't need an additional screw clamp or zip-tie to keep it in place.

 

Aren’t the Factory Series steal body shocks? The issue seems to be the aluminum body on the Performance Elite with the components of the springs and bearings in the adjusters being steel and the metal corroding.
Seems like Fox’s solution is adding extra grease to cover/coat the metal.

 

I just got them back, they loaded it up with marine grease .Buttery smooth adjustments now ,I believe they are even easier to turn then when I first got them . Was installing today and it seem they didn't align the bottom sturt correctly as it is 90° out of whack and when they put the resi back together that was 180 degrees out of whack.They had the knobs pointing up . I tripled check to be sure I wasn't hallucinating. Getting a strut compressor and going to adjust the bottom of the strut tomorrow

 

well.. there's your problem. All this was floating between the DSC and the ifp.. now I have to get that cap apart and find a new clip to get it back together.. anyone have part numbers for that clip?