DanMartin

34 minutes ago, Happycarz said:

My take on shock absorbers. (From a previous write up)

 

The OE Monroes were terrible going over rolling curb on a diagonal unless I slowly crept one wheel at a time.

 

At 14,000 miles, the Koni's resolved that issue and made road seams and the rebound so much better. With the Koni's, until the shock oil got heated up, road seams felt like I had 130 lbs in the tires. But in 3-5 miles all was good. No issues with rolling curbs.

 

At 65,000 miles, I replaced the Koni's with the Bilsteins, as I was getting excessive extension over bumps. The reason for Bilsteins was that Motorhome Magazine did a comparison test with 4 different brand shocks on the same coach and drove that qcoach on same test loop. They noted very little difference between the Koni and Bilsteins shocks. Wanting to save a few dollars, I went with the Comfort Bilsteins. Maybe the test driver wasn't driving his own coach as the test coach, maybe he couldnt feel the nuances between the Koni's and Bilsteins. Dunno.

 

At 69,000 miles, I'm back to fighting rolling curbs and to some degree extensions and rebounds. Therefore, back to Koni's. I only had time to put the fronts on before leaving for two weeks. And thought I might get away with leaving the rears alone. Nope. Go over a rolling curb, or similar, with the fronts, no problem. When the rears roll over it, I fear I might unload the cupboards. And as much weight that I have on rear axle, 21,650lbs, I thought no big deal with the Bilsteins. But I can tell big difference when going over bridge joints and rough roads with the Bilsteins. 

 

2000 miles later I installed the 4 rear Bilsteins with Koni's and the stars are now aligned. 

 

Just my experience. But, I’m sensitive to NVH.  Like Shepard steering boxes, X braces, and watts links, some people appreciate them while other have no issues with how their coach handles.

 

 

Solid review...and fwiw my Dads name was Harry Martin

1 hour ago, WCourand said:

We had all 10 shocks replaced last year with Bilsteins at Source Engineering.  Big improvement in ride and handling.  Several of our Rv friends have since had Source Engineering replace their shocks ,all with very pleased results.  Source has a special shock from Bilstein for installation on RVs.

From what I understand the source shock is a re valved bilstein comfort drive. You pay a 50 dollar premium over a regular comfort drive bilstein...plus shipping. So thats 500 plus the shipping on 10 shocks...Im not so sure its worth it...some say yes some say no.

Interesting that some with RR10S have put koni up front and bilstein in rear. I dont really understand. I want to replace the originals on myb02 exec. Can someone give me more clarity on the advantage of koni up front?