Awful looking shock top plates

My 2006 has 143k miles on it. Just put on OME shocks and coils, with the Dakar leafs. I've had Bilstein 5100's with stock coils and leafs on there for the past 70k miles. My stock shock top plates looked pretty bad. And I don't get to go off-road much at all. Replaced these with some KYB's from Amazon that were recommended on here.

I don't remember seeing much mentioned about replacing these in the various lift and suspension threads on here, so I thought I'd mention it and show this pic. The replacement parts (plates and bushings) were about $50. And my front end is quieter now! How about that?

 

Maybe the top nuts on the shock weren't tight enough? Looks like it was moving up and down and wore those notches.

I'm waiting for some free time to install my lift. I'll probably buy new plates/bushings after seeing this. Why not start fresh.. it needs longer studs anyways.

 

Not sure why it happened. Everything was torqued to spec. But hey, they lasted almost 12 years and were cheap and easy to replace. A rare combo, and a no brainer.

 

Something was wrong. That is not normal.