Crappy ass Bilsteins (!?!)

[Mark Mages <wasserbox@yahoo.com>]

I am still totally irate, and need to vent.  In no way
is any of this Pottermans fault - he rocks, and sends
me M&M's.

I bought a set of Bilsteins & H&R's for my Roc about
1.5 years ago.  Total cost with installation was
>$1,000 dollars. (this is before I started doing all
my own work)

These things piss me off to no end.  About 6 mos' ago,
one of the top plates on the rear shock stretched,
slid down the shock post and pinched it so it was
permanently bottomed.  Pulled them off, sent them to
Potterman, and waited a month for Bilstein to get off
their ass and replace them.  Meanwhile blew a pair of
BOGEs that I had laying around due to the shorter
springs.  Got the Bilsteins back.  All happy for 6
mo's.  

About 2 weeks ago I noticed a nice 'crunch' when I'd
hit small bumps when cornering.  I just did a bunch of
work on the front end (tore EVERYTHING apart) and I
thought I had put the wheel well cover on wrong. 
Futzed around with it, still heard the crunching, but
the struts seemed OK (still bounced back)

Go to change the oil last night, and noticed that the
drivers side sits 1.5" lower than the passenger side. 
Push down, no bounce - it is totally bottomed.  Lift
up and watch it slowly settle back to the bottom.

My question - WTF did I pay over $100 ea for???  If I
wanted crap that I would have to mess with every 6
months I would have gotten Ryder shocks, or some crap
from Pep Boys.  This is supposed to be about the best
you can get (within a reasonable price range) but I
have now had to replace both front and rear within a
year and a half!  My control arms sit like this now

_0__0/

As a disclaimer - I don't abuse my car.  The roads
here suck, and are always under construction, but I
baby my car over any adverse conditions.  I abuse it
on the nice well maintained twisty mountain roads, but
in town I rarely get it over 30mph.

My only consolations are that I hadn't gotten it
realigned since I replaced the steering gear the other
week, Bilsteins come with a lifetime warranty, and
Pottermans great customer service.

I feel a little better now.  THanks for the forum to
vent ;)

=====
Mark
Just because you have an opinion, doesn't mean that anyone wants to hear it

87 Westfalia Gl
84 Scirocco 8v
http://student.fortlewis.edu/~mwmages/

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites.
http://invites.yahoo.com/

--
Email problems to: scirocco-l-probs@scirocco.org  To unsubscibe send
"unsubscribe scirocco-l" in the message to majordomo@scirocco.org