jsmittyund03

Hello all, wanted to gauge any reactions or experience with this.

I have the 3.5 AEV lift on my 2010 Jeep JK Rubicon Unlimited. Unfortunately, after about 75,000 miles on it, my right rear Bilstein 5100 has sprung a leak. I've always found the lift/springs/shocks to be a little stiff for my liking. I do have aftermarket front and rear bumpers, but it still has always felt a little "stiff" for me. I don't overland, I only play around in the local off road park when I get a chance, and nothing too challenging.

Does anyone have any experience with replacing the shocks on this lift? I have heard good things about Fox and Rancho swap outs, but of course AEV says their shocks are directly tuned to the springs.

I guess I could just replace the rears with direct replacement AEV Bilstein 5100s, but I am open to replacing all four if it will work well and make the ride a bit more comfortable.

Thanks for your input.

Andre`

Fox is a bit softer on setting 1 but is our country aftersales service is good on Bilstein and non-existing on Fox.

TheDirtman

They are warranted from leaking. Bilstien should replace them.
Unless you are having shocks specifically built for your rig replacing with off the shelf throw away shocks is just a crap shoot.
Companies that claim shocks are "tuned" for their lift are just using marketing to get you to believe you are getting something you are not. You are just getting a generic valving for a range of the JK.

jsmittyund03

Unfortunately, due to them being packaged in a kit from AEV with the 3.5" SC lift, it is AEV's warranty program that goes into effect, thus, with 5 years and 75k on it, no longer under warranty per AEV.

Mark Doiron

I always get a kick out of that. And most especially for shocks like those Bilsteins 5100s: Heck, Bilstein didn't even design the shock to be installed in the JK without either cutting into the plastic on the passenger fender, or removing the battery, tray, and everything that attaches to it (air box, TIPM, etc). Such a simple thing that many other manufacturers did correctly, and twice I've seen an improperly installed Bilstein shock come loose on that passenger side because installers didn't do the job right.

d. gage

So you're saying that the shocks in a AEV 2.5 are no better than a generic 5100 I could buy from anywhere???

jadmt

. Seems it would simple enough to put an aev Bilstein 5100 and an off the shelf one on a suspension dyno and see. They have different part numbers. I bet they are slightly different. Probably not enough different for a butt dyno to feel but I bet they are different. Heck Bilstein makes a different front 5100 shock for a long arm lift a be a short arm lift. They are valved different but Bilstein says they are interchangeable

TheDirtman

They are the same shock with different valving. Tuning shocks is more then "matching to coils" which I am not really sure how you do that since the coils are not matched to the vehicle or what your are doing with the vehicle. Weight of the vehicle and what you are doing with the vehicle has a lot to do with the tuning of the shocks and what valving you need. Something likes Marks rig would take something very different then a stripped down 2 door sport. This is one reason why in these "what shock" threads you can get answers from rides great, to too soft, to to firm for the same shock.

Unless you are doing coil overs or ORI stats it is almost impossible to get a properly tuned suspension from a kit since you can't get coil rates out of the manufacturers. You typically start with your vehicle corner wights and choose coils to match your lift requirements. With that in mind and what you are going to do with the jeep then you adjust the valving. Rock crawling and on road typically have a lighter compression and rebound where as go fast vehicles will have heavier compression and faster rebound and will typically run higher psi on the nitrogen.

At minimum if you want to improve your ride, I would look into one of the shocks that has compression adjustment in them so you can do a bit of fine tuning to the shocks. Bypass shocks offer adjustment in compression and rebound and can be built to have adjustable zones along the travel but are expensive and typically are more to set up then the average jeeper wants to spend.

Mark Doiron

No. I'm saying that a company--and I happen to usually like AEV products--that can't take the time to engineer for easy remove and replace hasn't exactly given me faith that they've engineered anything else about their product correctly. If they'd actually installed one, then surely someone would have said, "Hey, we need to can the Allen wrench hold-down on the stud shaft and weld a nut to the shock shroud instead." That would be engineering for a JK install instead of cramming something off-the-shelf in place. (Please bear in mind that I have a quarter century of work in a past life engineering and designing military command and control systems, including the logistic processes behind all of that, and working in maintenance and flying as a crewmember in three conflicts using those actual systems, so that's where I'm coming from).

d. gage

Thanks for the responses!