Fox shocks not all that?

[handy island]

I recently acquired a 2003 EV Weekender that has the Go Westy lift kit with the fox shocks. The kit was put on in 2017 and has 20K miles. I drove the van on washboard road for 20 miles and the shocks got trashed and have to be rebuilt.

Needless to say this did not meet expectations and it is a hassle to get them rebuilt since they have to come off and get shipped to the service center leaving the van without shocks in the interim.

What are other people's experiences with these shocks? Have they lived up to you expectations? Did I overestimate their capability? Did you ever get them rebuilt? How did that go?

-andy

[MrPulldown]

Thanks for the feedback. I was wondering about them.

From my reading about pro level shocks, they seem to require a rebuild far sooner than the life expectancy of non rebuildable shocks.

However new, I am sure they perform better than any other new shock for our vans.
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2002 EVC

[bigfoot_ev]

I don't have personal experience but my neighbor just got back from a multi-week trip in his Ford Econoline Sportsmobile which has many suspension upgrades including Fox shocks.

He just sent his shocks off to be rebuilt because they got trashed driving down washboard roads. He also has seriously beefy tires that he airs down substantially to help, but I guess it didn't.

I've also seen pictures of melted Bilsteins from washboard. My takeaway from all this is to air down, drive slow, and stop and check regularly. If your shocks are getting heated you have to pull over and just wait. Or else deal with the consequences later.

[shirk]

Bumping this to see if anyone else is running the Fox shocks.

We drive a bit of washboard BC forestry roads and planning more this summer, thinking about doing the Fox shock upgrade.

There is a local Fox service center so don't need to worry about sending them back to Fox for rebuilds (or re-valving). Easy enough to keep a set of cheap Monroe's on hand for when they need service.

[shirk]

Bumping this again to see if anyone has more feedback. We now need shocks and doing more research.

It would be nice if we had an option like these for the Eurovan / T4.

https://t3technique.com/collections/springs-shocks/products/lifted-2wd-vanagon-shocks

[kourt]

I have Fox shocks on my 2001 Eurovan EVC and I also had them on my 1991 Vanagon Westy full camper.

In my experience, any lengthy washboard will overheat and degrade shocks to the point of requiring rebuild or replacement.

What qualifies as lengthy? I'm thinking of the 30 miles of washboard going into Big Bend Ranch in far west Texas, or the 20 miles of washboard going into the Uintas near King's Peak in Utah. These roads are not terrible, but they are not to be driven fast. Or fully aired. The first time I did it fully aired, I destroyed my Bilsteins.

Since then I have taken to slowing down considerably on washboard and allowing time for the shocks to cool between driving stints. Those behaviors have resulted in longer lived Fox shocks. I think the Fox shocks are an overall good upgrade. That's all the feedback I have.

kourt

[mikemtnbike]

Suspension movement is the main cause of road washboarding, especially brake-induced suspension movement. You even see washboarding on high traffic high speed mountain bike trails now where braking is forced by turns.


Anywho, if your suspension is smoothing out washboard roads so you can drive fast, that's because it's moving up and down waaaaay faster than it ever should and gets too hot, leading to the degradation, as described by kourt. You're also probably increasing the washboarding with the jackhammer movement of the shocks, not that there's really much to be done about that.
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1991 Vanagon GL 2.1 AT Westfauxlia. "Frankie" Totaled https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=764510&highlight=carnage
1995 Eurovan Camper "Marzivan"
2020 GTI SE manual

[Nitramrebrab72]

I use the Monroe VAN MAGNUM shocks they are twice as heavy and thick as the OEM skocks. Designed for almost overloaded delivery vans driving on rough roads doing high miles.

[kourt]

I wanted to report back on my experience with rebuilding Fox shocks.

I took the van on a 4000 mile trip this summer, and part of that trip was spent driving into and out of the Uintas Mountains wilderness, specifically Henrys Fork Campground, which is the trailhead for Kings Peak, the high point of Utah.

The road to Henrys Fork is not the worst washboard I've seen, but it is the roughest road I care to drive with a Eurovan. I bought Fox shocks a few years ago with this road in mind.

I took the drive with relative ease, not exceeding 25 MPH for the 40 minute drive to the campground.

By the time I got home from that trip, some 3000 miles after Henrys Fork, my right rear tire was cupping pretty badly on the inside and really making noise while driving.

...but I had to turn around and drive an additional 2500 to/from Iowa for RAGBRAI, so the tire got even more cupped.

I finally got home and checked the tire and did not find any obvious separations. These are Kumho HT51 tires and they have been excellent.

I thought back to the washboard road and figured that I cooked the Fox shocks on the washboard road.

With this in mind, and the fact that I had put 50,000 miles on them already, I removed the rear shocks only (the fronts seemed fine), registered with the Fox Factory Service Portal, submitted a rebuild ticket and sent the shocks in to Fox. In the meantime, I replaced the cupped tire and got on with life.

Three weeks later, and about $200 poorer, I got the rear shocks back. They had been rebuilt and I just reinstalled them.

To replace these rear shocks with the same would have been $340 from GoWesty, so this is ostensibly a savings of $140 to rebuild.

Are these shocks worth it? I don't know. I thought they would tolerate this moderate washboard road a bit more. I think it might be cheaper and easier to buy Bilsteins from FCP and use FCP's warranty to exchange the shocks periodically.

kourt

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2001 Eurovan Winnebago Camper