About three months ago replaced both front struts/air bags, but the car never felt quite right. So last week changed them again together with the front arms, ball joints and drop links plus the o/s/f driveshaft and carrier bearing and seal. On cleaning the "old" ones up this morning I noticed they are a different length!! See pictures.

Any thoughts?

Click image to enlarge

Click image to enlarge

Are they different manufacturers? Paul,
2001 Discovery 2 TD5, 211,000 miles & climbing
2006 FFRR TDV8 Vogue 145,000 miles & climbing
Member of Midland (Land) Rover Owners Club, www.mroc.co.uk

aftermarket or OE? ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
.

Well every day is a school day! Both stated as OE but bought from different suppliers, so likely to be different manufacturers!! My error. Another interesting fact is that the pressure required to push the dampers down is different also. Thanks for your replies, lesson learnt.

Chinese Garbage by any chance?



Dave 2010 3.6TDV8 Autobiography
Bas remap, Egr deleted (blanked & via remap) , Cold air intake, Turbo back exhaust, Provent 200 catch can, Banks idash gauge, 275/55/R20

GAP Diagnostics

Past - 02 & 03 TD6 And an 1984 Classic

Unable to confirm country of origin as both supplied in plain box and no markings on units. Adverts stated OEM with 2 years warranty and from a UK based company.

Sounds fishy...

China is making all this crap now... even the rear dynamic shocks you can buy for next to nothing from china / ebay and in the listings they say original oem etc etc ... its a great joke!

Worst part is i have seen many uk shops selling the chneese crap trying to make huge money out of it .. very sad

Your struts should really be bilstein .. dunlop even etc .. and they would be labeled both on the unit and the box




Dave 2010 3.6TDV8 Autobiography
Bas remap, Egr deleted (blanked & via remap) , Cold air intake, Turbo back exhaust, Provent 200 catch can, Banks idash gauge, 275/55/R20

GAP Diagnostics

Past - 02 & 03 TD6 And an 1984 Classic

not sure the bag length is a problem because the pump will add air untill the height sensor says 'enough'.

the effort required to compress the damper manually sounds more of an issue.

its not clear if you are calling the originals or the 3 month old ones "old" ?

usually ball joints and suspension arm issues result in clonks when you go over a pothole etc.

not sure what you mean when you say it didn't feel "right" after the first set of replacemnet dampers were fitted - maybe it was "right" after the replacements whereas before you replaced them it was "wrong" but felt "normal" to you

Why did you replace the drive shaft and carrier bearing??

The "old" ones I refer to are the units that were fitted three months ago. Having had the vehicle for over 5 years and driven many hundreds of FFs (worked for LR) after the "old" ones were fitted the front of the car seemed to bounce as if there was no rebound damping from the shock absorbers. So after the most recent work, it is now back to what I think it should drive like.

The driveshaft had a knock, so it was replaced and whilst I had it all apart I replaced the carrier bearing, seal and 'O' ring.

You have a supercharged. Dont they have different shocks on the front from the normal ones ...

that may explain the length difference. V8 or else ...

The SC ones are different as the engine is over 100kg lighter than the diesel.