I have been investigating the phenomenon for a while now ever since on member had a blowout due to the upper control arm digging a hole in the shock housing.
I first started to think it was from bushing wear and noticed the first nick on my passenger side shock a couple years ago. It only seemed to happen in extreme articulation situations and was very light at first.
This weekend I finally figured out why, at least on mine.
That shock was slowing getting nicked more and more when out wheeling and while out this past weekend it really started to make contact. I heard the very subtle scraping in certain situations so on inspected it was apparent that the arm was hitting pretty good now. I assumed it may be from bushing ware on the upper arms.
When back out on the pavement at speed I started to get a suspension fault as well. Reading the codes it was an out of range sensor fault on the same wheel as the nicked shock.
I pulled over to clear the fault and when the car was back a normal height I pulled the suspension fuses under the hood to keep the vehicle raised and drove home.
First thing I noticed when pulling the wheels off the front was that I had to raise the car higher to get the nicked shock wheel off then I did the other side. With the wheels off it was clear that the nicked side was articulating out much further than the other side, to the point that the arm was in full contact with the shock. I measured the distance to verify but still assumed it may have to do with the bushings or something else that had worn to allow the extra articulation.
So I swapped the shocks and the same symptoms now occurred on the opposite side complete with the same suspension fault now on the opposite side.
It turns out that something has slowly worn out in that shock to allow it to articulate more and more over time until the arm starts to hit the shock. An easy check is to jack the car up with both front wheels off the ground and see if they articulate down until the arm contacts the shock or if one is articulating more than the other.
I have a new shock on its way and will post more info after it is installed and I retest the articulation.
I first started to think it was from bushing wear and noticed the first nick on my passenger side shock a couple years ago. It only seemed to happen in extreme articulation situations and was very light at first.
This weekend I finally figured out why, at least on mine.
That shock was slowing getting nicked more and more when out wheeling and while out this past weekend it really started to make contact. I heard the very subtle scraping in certain situations so on inspected it was apparent that the arm was hitting pretty good now. I assumed it may be from bushing ware on the upper arms.
When back out on the pavement at speed I started to get a suspension fault as well. Reading the codes it was an out of range sensor fault on the same wheel as the nicked shock.
I pulled over to clear the fault and when the car was back a normal height I pulled the suspension fuses under the hood to keep the vehicle raised and drove home.
First thing I noticed when pulling the wheels off the front was that I had to raise the car higher to get the nicked shock wheel off then I did the other side. With the wheels off it was clear that the nicked side was articulating out much further than the other side, to the point that the arm was in full contact with the shock. I measured the distance to verify but still assumed it may have to do with the bushings or something else that had worn to allow the extra articulation.
So I swapped the shocks and the same symptoms now occurred on the opposite side complete with the same suspension fault now on the opposite side.
It turns out that something has slowly worn out in that shock to allow it to articulate more and more over time until the arm starts to hit the shock. An easy check is to jack the car up with both front wheels off the ground and see if they articulate down until the arm contacts the shock or if one is articulating more than the other.
I have a new shock on its way and will post more info after it is installed and I retest the articulation.
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