Icon, OME, Fox or Kings?

Front: ICON 2.5in with 700lb 3inx14in coil, durobump front bump stop, ICON delta-joint UCA

Rear: ICON 2.0in, ICON RXT at the 3rd stage, 4.25in durobumps.

 

My Icon stage 4 with UCA have been awesome (2 years now) on and off road.

These handle hard trails in the mountains and sandy desert wash terrains very well (plus the mud terrains KM3 complement all of that). The ride is a bit sporty/mildly stiffer on pavement compared to stock which I prefer and expected. I was leaning toward Kings but ended up with Icon due to availability at the time.

 

Fox 2.5 DSC all the way. hit up Accutune. would NOT recommend OME Dakar leaf pack. Deavers are Great but $$$. i got a stage 1 as per accutunes recommendation, but wish i went with a heavier setup (Stage II) and will likely have to upgrade.

 

Why would you not recommend the OME Dakars? I've heard nothing but good things about them. What would you recommend in their place?

 

They work great for me.

 

They Started sagging a bit after a while (never loaded past their rating) and after a while they started to squeak like a Banshee. Once the squeak starts its damn near impossible to get rid of (i tried many different remedies available online) They are soft on road but offroad it seems like i couldn't utilize my suspension to its full extent. Very Please with my Deaver Leafs.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/help-deaver-vs-dakars.699299/

 

ICON leaf pack is interesting.

 

So all of these are rebuildable, right? does the manufactures have a schedule for rebuilding their shocks?

 

Great info, thank you

 

We got the best. But in the regular army yes it’s the lowest bidder

 

They all have "recommended" service internals. Generally it's 20k for street use. 10k for street and mild dirt, and 1-5k for a lot of dirt use. If you see leaks or notice poor ride then rebuild right away.

Most of the issues people are discussing about being too firm or soft can easily be fixed with a rebuild of the shocks (through a revalve). You can pay like 200 bucks for this or ...do it yourself. Once you have seen it done, it's incredibly easy with even mild mechanic skills. bench vice, shop towels, a wrench, vice grips, needle nose pliers and a $2 threaded rod from home depot are all you really need. If you respect the finish on the end caps at all you will use a spanner wrench instead. The shims themselves are a few cents. Most manufactures and the internet can recommend which thickness shims you should run. Also you can apply simple logic and get thicker shims comparted to what ever you have in there now...

 

Warranty’s...Brings a peace of mind, assuring owners the company stands by there products, promotes quality, often times replace if defects are found, and sometimes offering for repairing
You can say it is a kind of contract...between factory and you...!

The longer the warranty ...the better.. Those really short warranty’s..buyer’s beware...90 days of warranty for a shock is a joke!

The best warranty’s is lifetime...good only if the company is around during your lifetime!
Aloha

Many marriages...will NOT offer warranty’s...but there’re is a guarantee ( statistically )50% of marriages will fail.. the 90 day shock warranty sounds good now?

 

Yep. Yes, depending on the application/usage from full on racing Baja, 1000 miles to all pavement 50k miles.

 

BuT mUh KiNgS!!!!

 

The warranty thing is true for people who need peace of mind I guess.

However, for shocks like these, it is typically very simple to fix the issues with you or a local shop that understands basic instructions. They are essentially metal cans full of hydro oil and some seals. The parts that can fail are actually very cheap (seals are dollar amounts). It's not like if one $5 O-ring fails the entire shock body , shaft, and cap are garbage and you now have a "salvage shock" . No, it's more like "oh crap one of the seals failed too soon. Aw well it was bound to happen at some point anyways"

This is opposed to complex things like entire vehicles or electronics which will take much more time / $ to repair. Additionally, if you have to send the shocks out for repair under warrantee you have to do the work of unbolting the suspension and shipping them out. It's probably easier to just slap in a new seal yourself , or fix a hose fitting , or what have you. It's a few bolts and snap rings... that's it.

All shock absorbers will eventually fail. They are a wear part like break pads. The harder you ride , the faster this will happen. The only difference is at least with rebuildable shocks you can have a brand new shock (exactly like it was from day one) after a simple service. These are not iPhones guys...

 

I'm running it at stage 3. Love it

 

Kings

 

Thanks for all the awesome feedback tacomaworld. Decided to go with Fox! Got the rears (and some other goodies) delivered today. Fronts, UCA’s will be in a day or 2, and deaver stage 2 are ready for pickup. I’ll post picks when I get it installed.

 

OME is like the New Balance sneaker of Toyota suspension