Community Forums

BennieH · 09-03-2017, 03:42 PM

Putting in the Bilsteins was not the worst job. 3 hours for the front, 4 hours for rear and the ride is excellent from a 2 hour test drive! No more banging over pavement patches or uneven pavement.
Best $650 spent (SHOCK WAREHOUSE).
Fronts #24-186605 & Rears #24-186612.
Tip for anyone deciding to tackle it themselves, get a nut splitter and just crease the nut, don't need to split it. Every top stud nut spun right off with my short handle rachet.
Also it is tight under there! I am only 160# and found that I just don't bend as well as I use to!

smballou · 09-03-2017, 05:41 PM

Good to know im looking fir shocks now for my 2001 windsor

BennieH · 09-03-2017, 07:17 PM

The old shocks were Monroes and I am sure the originals.

smballou · 09-03-2017, 07:20 PM

Mine are Monroe's also not a bad ride tho

YC1 · 09-03-2017, 07:28 PM

My Monroes were shot in less than 20K miles. It was an all day job changing them but sure made a huge difference.

BennieH · 09-04-2017, 04:29 AM

The last 5-7000 miles I noticed that we were taking uneven pavement with a lot more roughness and some more rebound. 60,000 miles on them and I could easily push them to the bottom of their stroke with one hand after I got them out. They were shot.

Nana25K · 09-04-2017, 02:19 PM

We changed our ours to Bilatiens last summer. I have no friends dear how old the ones were that were on it
The new shocks made all the sufference in the world

Jeff753 · 09-04-2017, 02:58 PM

I love my konis. Much softer on bumps than the super stiff Bilsteins. A guy at Josams said he's seen 50 broken top mounts (not counting mine) as the Bilsteins break at the top mount.

Nana25K · 09-04-2017, 05:16 PM

Ours aren't stiff at all Jeff. Rides really nice. I guess Konis are great but they certainly weren't in our budget. They have been thru Birmingham and if those roses didn't break a mount I doubt anything will.

BennieH · 09-05-2017, 06:51 AM

My ride isn't stiff at all. Hard ride was with the Monroes when they started going bad. Koni's were out of the budget and and reviews of both sounded like they were very comparable and the cost difference was $50/shock or $400 more for Koni's.
I did a lot of reading before making my decision and never ran into the breaking mounts issue. If the wrong shock was installed I could see a mount getting broken if there wasn't enough travel.

Dave0559 · 09-19-2018, 04:08 PM

Hey thanks for all the info

Mutt · 09-19-2018, 10:26 PM

Just replaced my Monroe's with same Monroe gas Magnum shocks. The ones I took off were still hard to collapse, and had 90,000 miles on them. Rides better now with less rattles. Thought about the Bilsteins, but didn't follow through to get a cross over number. I suppose I'm satisfied. good luck with yours.

BigLar368 · 09-20-2018, 04:05 AM

I took the tires off to get to ours which seems like a lot of work but really is not. After about 5 minutes of trying to get that top nut off I just used a Sawzall and wacked it off. The job then got much easier...lol. And yes it did make our ride much better.