I have had four out of five fail within 15,000 miles. QA1 replaced the first one (a leaky rear) immediately, with free overnight shipping, but read me the warranty when the next one failed about 18 months after I bought it. Stupid.

I just took them off and checked them all. Now only one appears to be working properly. One of the rears has no rebound (adjustment **** does nothing), but plenty of compression. The other rear has no compression (adjustment **** makes it a little stiffer), but plenty of rebound. One of the fronts is completely blown out, with no resistance in or out on any setting, pops up like a gas-charged shock, and makes a gurgling noise.

I am sending them to D&D Race Technologies for rebuilding and testing on the shock dyno.

 

I just returned one of the rear shocks due to a leak.
It was fixed and returned to me in a week.(warranty)
Shock was only 8 months old.

 

That is not a lot of miles Tim.
But are thay hard miles or just some circuit / strip with the majority of daily driving?

As a rule in UK / Europe shocks are good for 20-30K but tend to fall off after those sort of miles.
But your duff ones seem to have lost it completley.
And there not cheap ones either.

Off subject - how have you connected up the front of your Metco bars?
Only I have Western Hangers so some modfication & fabrication was required.
And I know you have lowered yours.

Nice looking truck mate.

 

Definitely a few track miles, but I'm not seeing the relevance to shock life. The shock doesn't know whether you are on a race track or a city street, all it knows is rough or smooth road.

In the U.S., even cheap replacement shocks typically have a lifetime warranty.

I have stock hangars. After some exhaust rebending, they just bolted on.

 

[QUOTE=Tim Skelton]Definitely a few track miles, but I'm not seeing the relevance to shock life. The shock doesn't know whether you are on a race track or a city street, all it knows is rough or smooth road.

In the U.S., even cheap replacement shocks typically have a lifetime warranty.
QUOTE]

Not much chance of getting a lifetime warrenty here, even less on cheapies.

Regarding usage, I had a Ford Seirra Cosworth 4x4 which was pretty quick even stock, however I uprated the shocks to adjustable ones but on the harder settings the life expectancy was lower.
So I thought maybe if you have used the harder settings it caused more internal wear due to increased damping and internal load.

They are dampers filled with gas or oil and sometimes both, so there must be a wear factor, but 15k does seem low, how long do you think thay have been like that?

I only asked because I need to change mine on the 'L' and was thinking about this type and make.

 

The guy at D&D (a former QA1 employee) is going to inspect my shocks. He thinks that they may not be heavy duty enough for a truck. If so, he may recommend something else, which will presumably not be adjustable.

This is all pretty disgusting to me. I guess that $700 for a set of shocks is not enough to expect them to survive for more than a few miles.

 

Let us know your findings Tim, My QA1's have only been on for about 1500 miles, but now I'm worried. only have em on the rear.

 

Your spot on there, shocks should last longer.
But are they designed as a daily use / general purpose or are QA1's intended for lower mileage / race use ???

Let us know your findings.

 

HI!... I have also heard from a ton of drag racers around here that the QA1 shocks are garbage and fail quite soon and repeatibly. I was going to order 4 dual adjustable from QA1 but I most likely will go with the better VARI-SHOCK set-up instead.

http://www.cachassisworks.com/

 

So it takes $1,300 to get non-junk shocks.

F'ing unacceptable. It's an overpowered farm implement, not an F1.

If the rebuilt QA1s fail again, I'm thinking Rancho 9900s. At least they are only $70 each.

 

"Stocker Star®
Externally adjustable, stock mount, bolt-in shocks for drag racing, street performance, road course and pro-touring"

They will also bake bread and wash clothes.

 

I just recently sent my fronts to Denny for compression revalving. He did a great job and got them exactly how I wanted them. Luckily mine haven't given me many problems. (knocking on wood)

 

Y'all are skeering meh. I still have the Bilstien's from the
Roush Kit on, and I don't think they are shot. At least I hope
not. Tim, how can you tell without taking them off? That's
a real PITA for the rears if I remember.

Cliff

 

Somebody cranked my fronts up to 10 as a joke, and it took me two days to figure out why it had no body-roll, yet rode like sh*t. This is with SVT springs and 1.5 coils removed.

Well, Tim gives a very good warning on his site regarding the quality of QA1's, and I still bought them. What does that say about me?

I wish they made a "heavy-duty" or "Sport" version of the Bilstein for the Lightning.

 

well that does it for me . for that kind of money they should be as close to worry free as possible. you should at least be able to get more than a couple of thousand miles out of them. these shocks are even intended for TRUCK application so they should be engineered with that in mind not to mention the performance aspect in which people are using them for .
no thanks i'll take my money and get some strange shocks for a fraction of the price .alot of people have been using them and i haven't read any complaints thus far(drag applications... i don't think they offer any fittment for fronts)
tim is right for that kind of money that kind of life span is unacceptable not to mention the inconvienence of down time and labor