Arnott has several options depending on what you want and what you want to spend. For their rebuilt OEM shocks, I too have heard their remanufacturing process involves testing the damping including the electronic parts if so equipped and it has to fall within a certain spec, whatever that is. Besides that they basically paint and install new air bladders which take most of the abuse in this kind of shock, and provide a lifetime warranty. The fact they probably don’t want to be replacing these along with the fact I’ve never heard of anyone having issues with them not working or lasting long leads me to believe it’s not an issue.
They also sell new shocks that don’t have the electronic damping. I believe there’s 2 models of those- a “value” part and a premium part. When I bought the ones for my 02 Denali several years ago their new premium one was manufactured by Bilstein but I don’t see that listed anywhere any so I assume Arnott took over that manufacturing. Both these models have a built-in resistor that you plug the harness into so you don’t get error codes. I don’t miss the auto damping but then it never worked when I bought the truck.
Arnott is a well known and respected company in the air suspension world. I first used their products on a Harley Davidson V-Rod I was building, great shocks. They just bought a major air suspension company that went bankrupt ( Accuair) and are bring their products back to market. I am only saying this so if you do buy any of their products you should be pretty certain they’ll be around if you have issues. I don’t know of anyone who has had issues that Arnott didn’t take care of right away, their customer service is great.
Anyway that’s my .02. Kinda a long post!