OEM struts. Options?

[halistan]

Whaaaaaa, whaaaa poor benebob :-( We cant help you're unlucky but one person getting a bad strut isn't an indicator that they are all bad.

Do yourself a favor and don't buy a lottery ticket.

[SUPER]

Originally Posted by Coan

If you do buy new OEM struts. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE look at the labels on the bag and the struts themselves for date codes. If you can, PLEASE take pictures of them and post them here. It would be very useful to us all.

I will see what I can do. Shipping to repair shop. I will call them

[Huskymaniac]

Originally Posted by Coan

If you do buy new OEM struts. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE look at the labels on the bag and the struts themselves for date codes. If you can, PLEASE take pictures of them and post them here. It would be very useful to us all.

Here are the ones I was talking about:

[Coan]

Originally Posted by Huskymaniac

Here are the ones I was talking about:

Thanks for the pictures. I just went through a box of random parts that I have in the garage. They all have labels on the bags matching the ones in your pics, and they are all clearly in the same date code format ranging from 2003 to 2008.

[1986nate]

Originally Posted by halistan

Whaaaaaa, whaaaa poor benebob :-( We cant help you're unlucky but one person getting a bad strut isn't an indicator that they are all bad.

Do yourself a favor and don't buy a lottery ticket.

Why don't you go ask Tim Eng about the 3 sets that failed before warranty was out and he ultimately went with konis....

[bwb3]

Or the 3 new OEM rear struts that failed on me, each within 6 months and less than 1K miles. I also went with Koni's.
Gene

[Huskymaniac]

The range of dates over which these failures occured would be helpful.

[1986nate]

Originally Posted by Huskymaniac

The range of dates over which these failures occured would be helpful.

Tim's were about 6 years ago IIRC. YT or Tim would know better as YT installed them, but Tim is pretty busy these days and not on often.
And I can't remember if it was bwb3 or someone else that just posted in the other thread about them failing just about a year ago. Until I heard that, I thought it was possible for them to have made a new run. But after that, that pretty much confirmed that there's been nothing done about the "situation".


Again, I could care less who does and doesn't want to believe it. Feel free to go throwing money away. I'm just trying to help...

Edit: ^This last statement wasn't actually directed at you Tony....

[Huskymaniac]

Originally Posted by 1986nate

Tim's were about 6 years ago IIRC. YT or Tim would know better as YT installed them, but Tim is pretty busy these days and not on often.
And I can't remember if it was bwb3 or someone else that just posted in the other thread about them failing just about a year ago. Until I heard that, I thought it was possible for them to have made a new run. But after that, that pretty much confirmed that there's been nothing done about the "situation".


Again, I could care less who does and doesn't want to believe it. Feel free to go throwing money away. I'm just trying to help...

Don't get cranky...give the new GF a kiss or something......

This is a help. I don't think anyone is trying win any sort of argument here. We are all just doing the best we can to gather data and speculate as to what the situation might be.

I did a little searching and found bwb's original posts on the subject. First, I think we need to separate rear struts from front struts. Why? Because they are different and, even if both went through a new mfg run, there could have been component issues with one but not the other. In other words, new rear struts could have been made with faulty valves whereas new fronts were not.

Also, we need to gather as much timing data as possible. Bwb appeared to buy and install his rear struts between 7/10 and 10/10. He posted a date code off of one of his failed struts and it was a 2007 date (070220). I will admit, that is discouraging. In December of 2010, just 5 months after bwb bought his struts, Geoff bought the same rear struts with 2009 date codes on them (091203). He sold the car about 7-8 months later without ever posting any issues with the struts. As you mentioned, Tim bought his around 2005 and, from what I recall others saying, Bob bought his around 2005 as well. So neither of them could have been from either a 2007 or a 2009 manufacturing run, if there was one. SVXRide also had a failure around the same time period.

Due to the nature of the beast, I find it unlikely that Subaru would leave unpackaged struts lying around. I would think that any labels on the struts themselves would be a manufacturing date. The labels on the bags could have dates that correspond more to an inventory date. So I tend to lean toward the above date codes being actual manufacturing dates. But that still leaves us with bwb's rear struts as a concern. It would point to struts being made in 2007 as having issues, for whatever reason. And if this assumption about dates is correct, it is very interesting that there appeared to be yet another manufacturing run in 2009. Maybe someone at Subaru figured out there was an issue and made their vendor do another run to replace their faulty stock?

And then we have the front struts. I haven't seen a single case of one of these being replaced and having the replacement fail soon after. That's curious.

What we really need to know is the probability of failure and then we could calculate the lower cost option. Sound like a poll is in order.....

[Coan]

Excellent.

[bishop]

The biggest question i have after reading this is, if we dont know whether the stock replacements will last what do we get next?

[halistan]

Originally Posted by bishop

The biggest question i have after reading this is, if we dont know whether the stock replacements will last what do we get next?

Funny you should ask, we've been discussing that very question in another thread...


http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/showthread.php?t=60228

[Tim]

The new old stock struts were awesome... for the first 11 months. I went through 3 suspension setups:

100% stock
"New" stock struts with Mychailo springs. I believe this was around 2006-2007
Koni Yellow with GC coilovers - 450f/350r - 2007 to current

I really enjoyed the 2nd set initially until I started experiencing dangerous bump steer once the rear struts completely went dead. By dead I mean you flip the strut over and it just falls right back in.

I'm not on too often but should be now that wedding season is coming to a close in 30 days for me and home buying is settling down. I've learned (and not just with cars) is to do it right the first time. Wait a little and save more money to do it, otherwise you end up spending more later.

Originally Posted by 1986nate

Tim's were about 6 years ago IIRC. YT or Tim would know better as YT installed them, but Tim is pretty busy these days and not on often.

[Coan]

Originally Posted by Tim

The new old stock struts were awesome... for the first 11 months. I went through 3 suspension setups:

100% stock
"New" stock struts with Mychailo springs. I believe this was around 2006-2007
Koni Yellow with GC coilovers - 450f/350r - 2007 to current

I really enjoyed the 2nd set initially until I started experiencing dangerous bump steer once the rear struts completely went dead. By dead I mean you flip the strut over and it just falls right back in.

Did your front struts fail as well, or just the rears?

Also, an attempt to gather data on the subject has been made, it would be great if you could add your experience there as well. It should be noted that your struts were not used with stock springs. Whether it made a difference in the life of the struts or not is debatable, but IMO it should still be noted.

OEM strut poll can be found here.

Edit: Nevermind about the non-stock spring comment, I misread your post. It looks like you had them on stock springs first, and then the second set on aftermarket springs.

[icingdeath88]

Originally Posted by bishop

The biggest question i have after reading this is, if we dont know whether the stock replacements will last what do we get next?

There are several answers to this question. IMO, one solution that won't go away is modding aftermarket impreza coilovers to fit. I am not 100% sure on which body impreza or whether WRX or STi coilovers would be better to start with, but with camber/caster plates on top, and the holes in the top of the strut tower drilled to accept them, and adjustable height coilovers, it has been done several times. The major downside to this compared to using the konis or the AMRs or the ebay coilovers is that the impreza struts won't have a bracket for the front swaybar. One workaround is to add a swaybar bracket to the control arm. The ebay coilovers came with an adapter that threaded onto the strut body. Perhaps such an adapter could be made that fits onto one of the threaded body aftermarket impreza coilovers.