One of the Emperor’s recently (6/19) installed shocks has flat-lined.
In hind sight it is no surprise. From the first few times driving the car on the new shocks it didn’t feel like much of an improvement over the old ones that were replaced. After I cured the socket rattle things were fine for a couple weeks, but then started noticing a slightly lower pitched sound from back there when hitting certain kinds of bumps. I kept meaning to tear apart the trunk and check for other loose tools or stuff that I keep back there, but never did.
Last week a high tone rattle appeared to go along with the occasional thunks, so Friday I did what I should have done before. I removed the faux carpet, the fiber board spare tire cover, the small tool kit,the air pressure gage, the flashlight, the small bottles of quick detailer & glass cleaner. I pulled out the pair of mechanic’s gloves, the paper towels, the umbrella, the rolled up Zoom Zoom picnic blanket and the cargo net holding the Garmin GPS & Cool Breeze Scoop. I pulled out the 10 disc CD changer and the plastic cubby holder on the left side. I then removed the three plastic beauty panels, 2 sides and back exposing access areas to the shock mounts.
I found nothing extraneous, but if you grabbed a hold of the big nut holding down the top of the driver’s side rear shock it was easily shook. And when you did shake the shock, it sounded off with that tinkling cymbal sound that I had been listening to for the last few days.
I filled out the contact form on the Moss Motors site, where I bought the shocks, and within an hour someone from there called. The shocks have a lifetime warranty and the way they handle a situation like this is I have to buy a new shock, but if it does turn out to be a manufacturer defect, they refund the money. Moss also is paying for the shipping of the new shock to me and the return shipping of the defective one to them, so not bad.
The new shock arrives tomorrow and gets installed on Thursday. Hopefully things will be a lot smoother (pun intended) after that.