I want to put new shocks on my mother-in-law's 98 Blazer. Willing to pay up for quality. Main requirement is a comfy smooth ride. Truck has never done an honest days work in it's life probably never will. What say yous'
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April 6, 2010 7:33 p.m. belteshazzar SuperDork
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April 6, 2010 7:52 p.m. P71 SuperDork
I like KYB GR-2's for factory-replacement, cushy-ride work.
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April 6, 2010 8:03 p.m. Giant Purple Snorklewacker SuperDork
I just put Bilsteins on my 2500HD and they are awesome. Taut, smooth and reasonable ($269 for 4 shipped from shox.com)
There were KYBs on there before (with 25k on them) and they were choppy/floaty like they were worn out. That is not a lot of miles and the price difference isn't much. Billies will live 65-75k.
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April 6, 2010 8:14 p.m. Streetwiseguy Reader
Monroe makes nice, smooth mom friendly shocks. Gabriels tend to the choppy side of the equation in my experience.
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April 6, 2010 9:33 p.m. belteshazzar SuperDork
if I could get bilstein comforts I would, but I only find HD and sports for that app.
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April 6, 2010 9:38 p.m. oldeskewltoy New Reader
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:
I just put Bilsteins on my 2500HD and they are awesome. Taut, smooth and reasonable ($269 for 4 shipped from shox.com)
plus 100
I ordered a set of Bilsteins (from Germany - not HD) for my All-Trac Corolla. Wonderful dampers, and I paid $440 to get them from Germany. (Reason I got them from Germany is Bilstein USA doesn't service the All-Trac Corolla)
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April 6, 2010 9:43 p.m. belteshazzar SuperDork
the HD's I put on their family's suburban were not as well received as I would have guessed. "stiffer than I expected. okay. I guess." was the comment iirc.
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April 6, 2010 10:23 p.m. billy3esq SuperDork
For Mom-duty, I'd go with Monroes. If it were mine, I'd go with Bilsteins.
It all depends on how much you like your mother-in-law.
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April 7, 2010 2:19 a.m. BobOfTheFuture Reader
Dont do sensa-tracs. They wore out in 6k on my Dads olds 88
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April 7, 2010 7:20 a.m. skruffy Dork
A 12 year old Blazer, owned by your mother in law? Take it for a day, fill the tires to the correct pressure, tell her it has new shocks. She'll be convinced it drives 10x better and you didn't have to do any work.
If you really want to do the work, use whatever the cheapest thing autozone has in stock. Blazers ride and handle like crap by design, shocks really aren't going to change much.
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April 7, 2010 1:17 p.m. belteshazzar SuperDork
this one rides worse than the 60k miles & easy life it's had suggests. They're original to the truck, & I've already done the ball-joints. She hasn't said a thing, it's just something I noticed & wanted to do something about.
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April 22, 2010 7:51 p.m. belteshazzar SuperDork
so I put the Monroe Reflex's on today.
night and day
If I could quantify the improvement in ride quality, I'd say maybe 20% better. Handling though, 100% better. You can change lanes now without feeling like it's going to flip over. It even seems to want to go in a straight line better, where before you wondered to yourself "did I REALLY just change all the ball joints?" We'll see how they hold up, but for now I'm tickled.
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April 22, 2010 7:55 p.m. Josh Dork
I really like the reflexes on my Dad's CR-V. It was either those or the oem shocks at twice the price, there aren't a lot of options for suspension on '02-06 CR-Vs.
