Which front shocks to choose?

[ukrkoz]

I am going to replace front shocks on my 07 Tahoe with Magneride. I figured how to disable Magneride and now am debating between the three choices.

 

[Scott in AZ]

Can’t go wrong with Bilstein B6-4600 for stock OEM neutral lift and general riding around on a mix of highways, streets, fire roads and double-track. There are a lot of good options but I think this is best bang for the buck. Less than $100 each.

 

[ukrkoz]

Mine are struts. I'd rather have complete strut, than deal with spring compressors, though I have 2 different types.

 

[Geotrash]

I am going to replace front shocks on my 07 Tahoe with Magneride. I figured how to disable Magneride and now am debating between the three choices.

Rock Auto sells the AC Delco passive strut assembly. For $108 each, it's what I would choose if I didn't care about magride. https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=6416187&cc=1433255&pt=15174&jsn=856

They also sell the Arnott magride struts for $508 each. I personally think it's worth it to keep the better ride quality but I totally get that not everyone would make that some choice.

 

[ukrkoz]

Ok, so I replaced my magnaride Dormans with

KYB SRM4079 Truck-Plus Complete​

Couple things:
1. I goofed when I bought Dorman magnaride struts. Apparently, they are for Z95 suspension code vehicles and, mine is Z55 suspension code. I found this only few weeks ago. Thus, truck was not set up to control rheomagnetic fluid in them anyway. But, that aside, they lost any function in severla months and, today, after I removed them, I found that they both leaked out bad- and only after 3600 miles of use, installed in January:


2. Here's side by side Dorman vs KYB. KYB is much heavier, you can clearly see that tube is larger and there are more coils in the spring.


And that at strut being $150 less than Dorman "product".


3. Installation. Left side slid in just fine. Right side gave me headache as, crossbar at the bottom didn't want to align with control arm holes. One hole would be off by about 1/4 of an inch without any ability to rotate crossbar to match the hole by hand.
So this is what I did:
on the control arm, right next to the hub, there's a notch, sticking out.
I aligned one bolt hole on the cross bar, on the notch opposite side, and slid bolt into it, to secure in place.
Then, I took #6 C-clamp, slid one end onto that notch and the screw end - onto the crossbar. Slowly turning the handle, I could move crossbar, in the rubber strut bushing, so that it aligned with the 2nd hole, and slid bolt in. Fortunately, on KYB, you can slide them nut brackets on from the crossbar side, even with the C-clamp on. You could use anything else suitable, to rotate that bar to align holes. Right hand side only, left aligned just fine.


And, you should have heard me driving after that. I was ********, truck rides so well! And I almost sold it and bought something else, just because of the TPOS Dorman struts!

Next step is to get onto the Dorman customer service and get replacement and sell them.

As a pleasant cherry on the topping, cold take off shimmy in the entire truck for about half a mile or so is gone too. So it's not tires, it's junk struts.