Front shocker, advice please

[TiredGeek]

OK, car's under factory warranty, goes in for final check and they find one front shocker and one rear shocker "misting", covered by the warranty so I'm relatively happy.
I question that they intend to only replace one at each end as I was always told you replace both if one goes. I'm told I'm wrong and they haven't done that for years. OK, it's a newer car than I'm used to and it's ActiveC, so maybe I am wrong.....

Anyhoo, car goes in, shockers done, car comes back.
Now the steering wheel isn't central when driving, and at motorway speeds it's pulling enough to the right to change lanes.
Garage say's they've done nothing that could have effected the tracking and that's how the car must have been when it went in.
They'll sort it for me, 4 wheel allignment, a mere £140+vat, how nice of them.
I rang another stealer (same group) who said "you can't do a front shocker without checking the tracking afterwards, a rear is OK, but if you're stripping the front suspension that's bound to alter the tracking, an alignment check is part of the job".

I'm gonna get this sorted from my own pocket, at a place I trust, alignment is £80+vat (who also happen to do the same job for the stealer I went to, so they're making money there too), and then I'm gonna send the bill to the cowboys. They're never gonna see my car again.

Proper paperwork would help my case, as I don't want the other dealers mechanic getting into trouble (sacked), I'm not going to mention his name, so his opinion is easy for them to ignore. But if I can get some hard evidence to show they did the job wrong.......

So guys, what I'm asking here is:
Does anyone have the OFFICIAL Volvo instructions on this?
Do Volvo say it's OK to do one shocker at each end, or should they have done all 4?
What do Volvo say about the tracking after front suspension work?

Thanks in advance, Greg.


In case it's needed: car is 2007 XC70 D5 (185) SE LUX 6spd Manual with ActiveC (last of the P2 cars). Four days of warranty left.

[billr99]

OK, car's under factory warranty, goes in for final check and they find one front shocker and one rear shocker "misting", covered by the warranty so I'm relatively happy.
I question that they intend to only replace one at each end as I was always told you replace both if one goes. I'm told I'm wrong and they haven't done that for years. OK, it's a newer car than I'm used to and it's ActiveC, so maybe I am wrong.....

Anyhoo, car goes in, shockers done, car comes back.
Now the steering wheel isn't central when driving, and at motorway speeds it's pulling enough to the right to change lanes.
Garage say's they've done nothing that could have effected the tracking and that's how the car must have been when it went in.
They'll sort it for me, 4 wheel allignment, a mere £140+vat, how nice of them.
I rang another stealer (same group) who said "you can't do a front shocker without checking the tracking afterwards, a rear is OK, but if you're stripping the front suspension that's bound to alter the tracking, an alignment check is part of the job".

I'm gonna get this sorted from my own pocket, at a place I trust, alignment is £80+vat (who also happen to do the same job for the stealer I went to, so they're making money there too), and then I'm gonna send the bill to the cowboys. They're never gonna see my car again.

Proper paperwork would help my case, as I don't want the other dealers mechanic getting into trouble (sacked), I'm not going to mention his name, so his opinion is easy for them to ignore. But if I can get some hard evidence to show they did the job wrong.......

So guys, what I'm asking here is:
Does anyone have the OFFICIAL Volvo instructions on this?
Do Volvo say it's OK to do one shocker at each end, or should they have done all 4?
What do Volvo say about the tracking after front suspension work?

Thanks in advance, Greg.


In case it's needed: car is 2007 XC70 D5 (185) SE LUX 6spd Manual with ActiveC (last of the P2 cars). Four days of warranty left.

In my opinion, dampers should be changed out in pairs unless they have very few miles on them. If you don't do it this way you will get a side-to-side imbalance that you will feel in the handling. Now I'm pretty sensitive to a car's balance so maybe its just me, but I can tell when I've had a damper blow a seal or go soft just by the way the car feels going over a hump in the road, railroad tracks, even a sleeping policeman.

As far as an alignment, there is enough slop in the lower mounting holes (where the damper mounts to the upright) to induce a camber error of at least one degree. More than likely, when they fitted your new ones they just bolted them up with no regard for where the old ones were positioned. You need an alignment, I'm afraid.

Kind of a drag that you have the 4C as the bits aren't cheap as you know. Equally bad is a warranty policy that only wil replace what is damaged rather than to sort it so that it is done properly, which in this case is to mount matched dampers. I'd press them to do the job properly. Volvo is ultimately going to pick it up anyway, so why should they care.

Good luck,

Bill

[TiredGeek]

Hi Bill,
I've tried every damn way to get them to do the job right, not just how they want.
No go, they won't do anything that Volvo UK hasn't given the go-ahead for, and VUK is adamant that you don't need to change both at each end, you can do one at each with no adverse effects. You know different, I know different, but they won't budge.
Then when I find the stealer doesn't even follow VADIS instructions it makes me sick (someone has checked for me and it says to do alignment after changing the shocks).
No wonder they've been losing money and been flogged to the Chinese.

The attiude I got from the service manager when I complained was staggering. It was like that when it went in, etc, not our problem to sort it, etc. Nothing we did could affect that, etc.
We CAN sort it, but you're gonna have to pay, etc.
Sc**w them.

I'll get it sorted at a specialist laser tracking place I trust, then send the bill to the stealer, if they don't pay up I'll go to VUK, then court.
I don't roll over easily, they're gonna find that out pretty soon ;)

One bit of advice for anyone coming to the end of the warranty is to check various stealers if they think something should be covered. The stealer who did the shocks wouldn't do the air-con condensor which is pretty badly corroded, I went to another branch of the same franchise and they said it's covered. That's a ~£500 (~$700 US) part I would have had to pay for, wish I'd gone to the out of town place for the shockers too......


BTW, have you (or anyone) got VADIS? I can't get it to run (Win7 64), I could really do with the relevant shock absorber instruction page to print out to prove the manager wrong....or prove it if I need to take this further. Pretty Please someone :D

[billr99]

I hate to say it, but your dealer experience is exactly the reason I do as much as I can myself on my cars. I'd rather pay for tools, etc. than to pay a dealer to screw it up. Hell, I can screw it up for free!;)

As far as VADIS on Win 7x64, or 32 bit for that matter, it can't be done. The directions specify WinXP SP2 and for once, they actually mean it that specifically. Despite my mucking about with it on Win 7, I couldn't even get the thing to do a clean install. Put it on WinXP and it worked the business straight out. No messing about with it. Since I run VMWare on a Mac though it was easy to set up. I suppose if you have a PC with sufficient guts you could run some sort of VM software and an alterative OS or do a dual boot. In any case, you need Win XP.

Good luck with your dampers.

Cheers,

Bill

[BillAileo]

Bill,
When I upgraded to a new PC with Windows 7 I used software called "PC Mover" to transfer my applications, including VADIS, from the XP system to the new Windows 7 PC. Suprisingly VADIS ended up functioning but with one really strange limitation, it will not function if I am using dual monitors, which was no problem with XP.

[billr99]

Bill,
When I upgraded to a new PC with Windows 7 I used software called "PC Mover" to transfer my applications, including VADIS, from the XP system to the new Windows 7 PC. Suprisingly VADIS ended up functioning but with one really strange limitation, it will not function if I am using dual monitors, which was no problem with XP.

I would believe that. I'll see if I can find "PC Mover" and see if I can get it over to my Win7 VM. The install program for VADIS does a machine and OS check before it does much of anything else. Interestingly, it doesn't give you an error about the OS it just acts like it is installing but does not give you a working app. But if you already had it installed with all the appropriate registry entries, etc. there is no reason to think that it wouldn't work under Win 7. Have you tried running VADIS under compatibility mode to sort your dual monitor issue?

Thanks for the info,

Bill

[BillAileo]

I unsuccessfully tried compatibility mode ....

Bill

[Aviator]

I question that they intend to only replace one at each end as I was always told you replace both if one goes. I'm told I'm wrong and they haven't done that for years.

Look at it from a warranty claim standpoint. One misting strut.....part is defective.....claim approved. One strut with nothing wrong with it......claim denied and dealership and/or tech responsible eats it. It's as simple as that. I learned that the hard way one day at a Hyundai dealership. Warranty claim denied on a front strut I had replaced that had absolutely nothing wrong with.......all because I assumed you replaced them in pairs. I ended up buying that strut.....$300 off my pay cheque. It's a tough pill to swallow, but that's how warranty works. You don't go replacing parts that have nothing wrong with them. The establishment you went to did it right as far as that issue goes. BUT, an alignment should have been performed after the strut replacement. That's just part and parcel of a strut replacement job. Bollocks to those guys for not setting up the car properly for you. I'd be majorly pissed if it were me, and I'd have demanded it be made right and there would be one hell of a scene!! I've been an automotive tech for 23 years, and I have NEVER released a car without an alignment after such work has been performed unless the customer specifically requested that one not be done.

Dave.

[billr99]

The thing I don't get here is, is it assumed that a damper with miles on it but functional seals is damping as well as a new one? I've always heard that you replaced things like springs and dampers in pairs just to insure that you had each side working the same as the other. If the bits are fairly new (what is the miles where they noticeably degrade?), I could see a replacement as described but say you have a car with 60K miles on it. Anyway, I guess I need enlighten as it might save me some money one of these days.

Thanks,

Bill

[TiredGeek]

Hi all, an update.

I have now got the relevant pages from VADIS, I'm getting the car sorted at a specialist and taking the bill and the pages, and I'm going to have a little chat with the service manager, LOUDLY, in front of as many customers as possible. :)


As far as replacing all shockers is concerned: I've learnt something new. Since the two were put on, one each end, I have done over 1k miles at high speed, on demanding roads. I cannot detect any difference in handling, and I usually know when one tire is down by 3psi so I'm sensitive to that sort of thing.
It must be as someone on here suggested, the ActiveC computer must program the new shockers to work the same as the old ones (~40k, don't know where you got 60k from Bill ;)). It didn't make sense to me, what with seal wear etc, but it's true.
I was always "aware" that you changed suspension, brakes, steering components etc in pairs or preferably all four if you could afford it. Looks like those days are past....

[JRL]

You still do
The only difference is that it being an electronic shock it adjusts itself for the wear difference.
Put the other two on and you WILL notice a difference but as long as you're OK with it, wait a while.
Add the others one at a time when you have the money

[billr99]

(~40k, don't know where you got 60k from Bill ;)).

Out of my arse, of course.[thumbup]

Glad its all working. For once plus points for something electronic. Usually electronics are just a hassle, but this time it looks to actually be worthwhile. I wonder how much wear can the electronics compensate for?

Cheers,

Bill