Sport Aftermarket Struts/shocks | Page 2 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Sport Aftermarket Struts/shocks

According to my local dealership, sports and police explorer has the same suspension/brakes. And like I've said before, I will understand if both struts fail together, but it's just the passenger strut the one going bad. It really doesn't make sense.
 



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It seems possible that one side would be stressed more than the other due to the left vs right lanes of travel. US uses right lane so right hand turns are sharper than left.

I assume you had an alignment done after each strut replacement and have monitored tire wear. If there was some tire impact and the whole strut tower is now off, it would be no surprise that there's greater stress.

There might be some other mechanical differences side to side, but in the end you're still left with choice of struts and driving habits. I may not be looking in the right places but I'm not seeing others have this failure rate on their struts. It would be easy to blame the springs but you stated the first failure was prior to that change, though that change could compound the problem.

You're free to disagree with my assessments but that doesn't do much good if the struts keep failing. Last thing I'd do is keep buying the same part that keeps failing, unless it was non-critical and had a lifetime warranty like my '98 hood struts.
 






According to my local dealership, sports and police explorer has the same suspension/brakes. And like I've said before, I will understand if both struts fail together, but it's just the passenger strut the one going bad. It really doesn't make sense.
Just FYI, the brakes on the Sport are the same as on all the other Explorers.

Peter
 






You can't go wrong with Bilstein or Koni shocks/dampers for just about any application. For lowering your car find a shock that can handle it otherwise you're placing undue load on the shock and will wear prematurely and won't perform properly.
 












You can't go wrong with Bilstein or Koni shocks/dampers for just about any application. For lowering your car find a shock that can handle it otherwise you're placing undue load on the shock and will wear prematurely and won't perform properly.

Problem is that none of those brands manufacture shocks for 5th gen Explorers
 






It seems possible that one side would be stressed more than the other due to the left vs right lanes of travel. US uses right lane so right hand turns are sharper than left.

I assume you had an alignment done after each strut replacement and have monitored tire wear. If there was some tire impact and the whole strut tower is now off, it would be no surprise that there's greater stress.

There might be some other mechanical differences side to side, but in the end you're still left with choice of struts and driving habits. I may not be looking in the right places but I'm not seeing others have this failure rate on their struts. It would be easy to blame the springs but you stated the first failure was prior to that change, though that change could compound the problem.

You're free to disagree with my assessments but that doesn't do much good if the struts keep failing. Last thing I'd do is keep buying the same part that keeps failing, unless it was non-critical and had a lifetime warranty like my '98 hood struts.

Hey man I'm sorry if my first reply to you was rude.

Yea, every time shocks were swapped an alignment was performed, or at least they told me that at the dealer. When I did them on my own I took it for an alignment and it was good, no adjustments were needed.
My wife is not a bad driver and she pampers her explorer so much, she had been mad at me all this time because of that problem.
I bought the motorcraft again because they were cheaper than the Monroe and they were available and Monroes had to order them. This time they gave me warranty on the motorcrafts and because I pay out of my pocket, supposedly it doesn't matter what happen to them, they'll replace them. So let's see how many miles they last and hope the other ones were a bad batch.
 






Problem is that none of those brands manufacture shocks for 5th gen Explorers

Ohhh man, I just assumed that they would have an Explorer damper. I'm a newcomer to the Ford and SUV world, until now I've only owned German cars.

What are quality brands for dampers or suspension are common in the truck & suv world?
 






Thx Peter
I should have qualified my post by saying the brakes are all the same on all models after the December 2013 builds.
 






^ What else changed in Dec '13? I noticed on Rock Auto that their Motorcraft struts for 2014 have the following notation and aren't listed at all for 2015's:
MOTORCRAFT AST12359 {#ASH24504, DB5Z18124AF, DB5Z18124G} Info
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Front Left; Before 12/2/13
MOTORCRAFT AST12357 {#ASH24505, DB5Z18124AD, DB5Z18124H} Info
Heart.png
Front Right; Before 12/2/13

I also noticed that they only have a 24 mos. warranty vs lifetime for the Monroe Gas-Magnum and OESpectrum.

From one of the pics it looks like XplrSprt did use the 12359 & 12357.
 






image10.jpg


Tasca parts show those part numbers as the "with HD brakes"
 






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Better pic. Rock auto doesn't always have accurate descriptions.
 






Just ran my VIN for my Platinum on FordEtis and there was a line item that shows; Heavy Duty Fr/Rr Calipers And Pads.

Peter
 






Just ran my VIN for my Platinum on FordEtis and there was a line item that shows; Heavy Duty Fr/Rr Calipers And Pads.

Peter
I run mine yesterday, and it stated the same. I was gonna check the manufacture date but I forgot.
 






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