2,500 miles....Blown OEM struts!!!

[LilPartyBox]

Since day one i felt my car was overly stiff. I mean, i would expect a stiff ride from a sport oriented vehicle but this was truly ridiculous for an OEM setup. VERY bang crashy. Sounding almost like the strut mounts were loose over some of the rougher roads. I chalked it up to bad OEM shock tuning and just keep driving. Whatever...

Today i had her up on ramps to change my out my second batch of break-in oil. While i waited for the oil to cooldown, I took a light and figured i look around for the leaking axles some have complained about. Thankfully I'm still good but while shining the light on the axles i noticed my end links were covered in grime. Immediately i thought it was fling from a bad CV boot but my CVs are good to go. So the next likely culprit was the strut. After all, that would explain the HARSH ride I've been suffering all this time. Sure enough my struts are COVERED in oil. I reached up and touched it to be sure. It was all over the spring base, the body, and the end links...on both left and right struts of the car! This might also explain the vibration I get over 85 mph. To make matters worse, my rear shocks have been clunking too. Probably also blown!!!

Fix. Or. Repair. Daily. I knew i shoulda kept my speed3 lol ZERO issues in 32k miles. This Ford, blown suspension since day one. WTF! She's lucky i lover her lol I never (EVER) take my cars to the dealer and i dread the thought of a Ford tech even sitting in my car at all. I don't know that to do. Grin and bear it until i can save up for my coils or take a chance that the meatheads at the dealer will fuck my car up some how... Have a look at the photos. How long do you think I have doctors before this shit gets dangerous?

LOOK CLOSELY. START WITH THE HOLE IN THE SPRING BASE AND FOLLOW IT TO THE LEFT AND YOU CAN SEE A DRIP FORMING RIGHT ABOVE THE END LINK

IN THIS SHOT YOU CAN REALLY SEE A LINE TOWARDS THE LEFT WHERE THE OIL STOPS AND THE SWAY BAR IS DRY. SHOCK OIL IS JUST PORING DOWN THE END LINK!

NOTICE HERE WHERE TOWARDS THE RIGHT OF THE SPRING BASE IT'S DRY. THAT WOULD BE THE OUTSIDE OF THE CAR. IT'S DRY BECAUSE STRUTS LEAN A BIT TOWARDS THE INSIDE OF THE CAR (NEGATIVE CAMBER) AND THE OIL NATURALLY FOLLOWS GRAVITY. YOU CAN EVEN SEE WHAT COULD BE A BIT OF SPLASH ON THE FENDER LINER.

 

[frankiefiesta]

Crazy. First I've seen on this forum with blown struts.

Them damn NYC roads... Bring it to the dealer let them replace them

 

[1azst]

Previous road-test got air born?

 

[haste]

hope your wheels are ok...

 

[LilPartyBox]

My wheels are pristine. This is NOT a pothole situation at all. I'm fanatic about avoiding pot holes. These were blown since day one. My ride quality was unforgiving even on the test drive. This is a Ford build quality issue...I've owned stiff cars for decades. My stiffest car was on KW V1s with poly bushings everywhere they fit, solid aluminum subframe bushings and chassis bracing. I'm no stranger to stiff. This car has always ridden worse than my stiffest. Maybe i can convince the stealership to give me the parts instead? lol

Previous road-test got air born?

lol

 

[me32]

Hahaha this is laughable. I highly dought they were blown from day one. This is very rare issue and most likely is driver error or really bad roads.

 

[ridinVINTAGE]

My struts are also blown at 5k miles, I will admit my roads are terrible around here. I avoid what I can. I took it to the dealer for an oil change they told me they were blown and they assumed my suspension was modified. I have been waiting for over a month for the new ones to come in if they even ordered them.

 

[hydrix]

anyone know where to order oem struts? i dont want to go through a dealership if possible.

 

[LilPartyBox]

www.fordparts.com about $90 per for struts. This is Ford official though.
RockAuto.com has motorcraft labeled units for about 70 per

If the dealer won't give me the parts (most likely) I'm probably going to order motorcraft parts with new mounts to hold me over until i can do the Bilstein coils. I refuse to have them touch my car when i can do the job myself.

 

[OffTheWall503]

I'd go with the Koni STR T replacement struts, probably better quality than the Motorcraft struts.

 

[dyn085]

It wasn't like that from day one, these cars are harsh-riding by design and lots of people complain about it. I wouldn't even consider putting more OEM suspension parts back on unless you're absolutely bouncing everywhere and absolutely can't afford aftermarket replacements.

 

[RAAMaudio]

The OEM tuning sucks and likely to blow again at time point in time.

Unless your car had like 1 or 2 miles on it chances are some jackass went a bit wild in it, jumped a railroad crossing, even took it on a bumpy dirt road, etc....

I do fully understand not letting them touch your car, I do not have a warranty and do not want one for which is reason enough even before mine was modded a great deal.

Instead of spending $140 on a pair of less than stellar struts I recommend seeing what you can find in something a bit better, a lot better most likely, for not a huge amount of money.

 

[Quisp]

I wonder if they'll say it's a wear item and refuse warranty. I had a Sentra SER that I had a shop install KYB's on . I was traveling for work and time wasn't available to do myself. About a week later car rode like a hay wagon. Front struts covered in oil. The "tech" used vice grips on the shafts to tighten mount nuts. KYB gave me replacements thankfully.

 

[RAAMaudio]

They should be replaced under warranty but I would not want them to do so, I gave mine away with 293 miles on them, that is how much I did not like them.

I had no choice but to use vise grips on a strut install once but I was smart enough to do it at the very top where it would never come in contact with the seals, they lasted for years. Of course I prefer to not do hack jobs but sometimes you have to do what is needed to get things done, it was on my own car of course.

--------------------------

I have hardly every paid to have work done on a vehicle and of the times I have, nearly all were a total failure even by supposedly reputable shops that I checked out before letting them touch them.

1) fan came off and took out the radiator and the hood popped open as the latch was bent, I nearly went head on into a telephone pole at 60 MPH in a 510 Datsun back in the early 70's and I had no place to work on the car.

2) big name, at the time, turbo shop, burned out the clutch and blew the engine, all tubing work was cut and welded but no slag removed so flow was severely restricted. I showed up with a demand letter and a big bad ass bubba and took the car and a huge pile of parts to sell off then bought a welder and rebuilt the whole system.

3) hired a "race shop" to build a roll cage, had to take the car back and cut out the work it was so bad, guy claimed to be the local rally scrutineer but he was lying. I bought a new helmet, suit, etc from a shop down the road and found out he was the real scrutineer and his buddy was the road race inspector, they went over the "cage" and found even more wrong than I did. I wrote up another demand letter, they both signed it, I was given another pile of parts to sell, made a tidy profit actually.

4) took the car above to a race cage only shop, took forever, I ended up working all night with the guy to get it ready for an event 150 miles away I barely made it to, took 5th place in a Pro Solo against some very hard core cars and I was on slippery new slicks, stock power. Later I found many incomplete welds, realized some tubing was missing, bought a tubing bender and did my own cages after that.

5) brand new $60k Duramax dually, found a good deal on a 60 gallon underbed fuel tank, shop offered me a $150 install, hell yes, it is a pretty serious job, while there they installed some lowering shackles as the truck was hard to get under the 5th wheel hitch as the rear sat so high stock. I have had some pretty serious injuries and some jobs are very difficult for me to do. I filled the tank, noticed it hanging down, they left off a critical strap which could of led to a disaster, they also kept nearly a full tank of fuel, and jacked up the pickup so I only had 50 gallons and ran out in a very bad place when I thought I still had 10 gallons. Same day I filled and saw the tank sagging(I had already made them pay me for the fuel they tried to steal) I opened the tail gait and there was a hole in the bed from the shackle install, bed liner just sprayed two days earlier....they lost the right to sell the tanks, offered to fix the issues, I did it myself, found out they were going bankrupt, I did not bother with getting anything out of them.

6) $1100 dyno tune, blew the engine two days later, 5 holes on the block, off the road backwards at high speed and on fire. Guy said he was great on all tuning solutions, found out he had never touched the system or car I had before, charged me for his learning time, I was partially reimbursed. This is from a world famous shop, new tuner they brought in, the amazing guy I was scheduled for was ill or something......

Again these were highly regarded shops I looked into first.....why I do not let others touch my cars. I do get an oil change on occasion but only if I can watch and supervise and I bring the oil and filter I want to use.

I do pay for tuning, I could learn it if I wanted to as have a background in very intense electronics repair but I do not want to learn it, I am retired and rather have a brew instead, we have some great tuners available for very reasonable cost so not worth it to teach myself as we know it is a very serious prospect and takes a huge effort to get good at it.

OK, done ranting, DIY, DIY, DIY, you care far more about your car than they do

(Of course there are some fine shops and techs but far and few between)

--------------------

Back on topic, as before, I would DIY this with better parts, you would be far happier in the end

Rick

 

[NJBooST]

Took my winters off today and saw that my passenger front strut is completely shot. I have a 2016 with 8,000 miles. Can't recall hitting anything major, but I did find a piece of cardboard from the factory wedged in-between the strut mount and bearing assembly... Guess I need to decide if I should get XTA's or BC's now.

 

[LilPartyBox]

It wasn't like that from day one, these cars are harsh-riding by design and lots of people complain about it. I wouldn't even consider putting more OEM suspension parts back on unless you're absolutely bouncing everywhere and absolutely can't afford aftermarket replacements.

The OEM tuning sucks and likely to blow again at time point in time.

Unless your car had like 1 or 2 miles on it chances are some jackass went a bit wild in it, jumped a railroad crossing, even took it on a bumpy dirt road, etc....

I do fully understand not letting them touch your car, I do not have a warranty and do not want one for which is reason enough even before mine was modded a great deal.

Instead of spending $140 on a pair of less than stellar struts I recommend seeing what you can find in something a bit better, a lot better most likely, for not a huge amount of money.

It's hard for me to believe this was a day one issue as well but the ride hasn't changed since i rolled off the dealer lot. Harsh and very bang crashy, indicative of blown dampers, since the beginning. I remember telling my wife when we got home that i thought they were blown. She called me crazy. I'm hyper-sensitive when it comes to cars and can feel a rock stuck in my tire. So i chalked it up to that but i assure you, since day one it's felt this bad. Only this past week has it really started to bang HARD over dam near everything. RAAM, mine had 11 miles off the lot. So it is totally possible some joy riding lil shit put my car threw the ringer.

Time frame is largely irrelevant though as their are two other owners posting here with the same issue. The real focus is the relatively low miles reported. There may be a pattern forming here....

Took my winters off today and saw that my passenger front strut is completely shot. I have a 2016 with 8,000 miles. Can't recall hitting anything major, but I did find a piece of cardboard from the factory wedged in-between the strut mount and bearing assembly... Guess I need to decide if I should get XTA's or BC's now.

I'm leaning more and more towards a going DIY with a Koni/H&R combo. I was going to do Bilstein coils but with this damper issue and the cylinder head thing SourSkittles posted, I'm really thinking to keep the mods cheap and at a minimum so i can just give this car back at the end of the lease...unfortunately. My first american car has been living up to the stereotypes

CARDBOARD?!!!! WTF?!!! See, it's shit like that which has me ready to turn this car back in off lease. ZERO quality control.

 

[ridinVINTAGE]

When I was installing my oil cooler yesterday I noticed some oil seeping from my passenger side strut. Two blown before 10k

 

[bigbrotherjohn]

Also from northern NJ here, I have encountered my fair share of NNJ potholes. What do you think of these shocks ?

 

[ridinVINTAGE]

Looks almost as bad as mine lol


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[me32]

Wonder if cold climate has something to do with it or if it just really bad roads where you guys live and drive