For the past 4 months I have been hearing a noise in the suspension when the car had sat over night and was cold or cool out (under 70 degrees). It would last about 15 minutes then go away. Since I put new C6Z06 shocks on less than 10,000 miles ago (2 years) I did not suspect the shocks. I have been under the car trying to find something wrong or lose including the shock bolts. I checked the engine/rear cradle mounting bolts, entire exhaust system and any thing I could inspect. I also have Z06 sway bars on and had greased the bushings then replaced them with poly bushings all to no avail. Over the past 3 weeks the noise had gotten worse and sounded like something really wrong in the suspension but I could not feel a problem. I was going crazy trying to find the noise and was not enjoying driving it. Finally I decided to pull the C6Z06 rear shocks off and put my OEM base shocks on to see if they were the problem since they are the easiest to replace. No luck. I then pulled the front shocks off using the zip tie method and the passenger side was definitely bad. It would compress easily and not expand where the driver side was very hard to compress and would expand immediately. It was not leaking fluid. I now have the OEM shocks on and have ordered a new front C6Z06 front shock and have to put all 4 C6Z06 shocks back on. Thanks to The McRat Method (Patrick McSwain) the job is not to bad but my hands did get bloody. Who would have thought a shock with less than 10K miles would go bad? The OEM base shocks are mad is the god ole USA and the Z06 shocks Mexico.
When I drove it this morning I was so happy to have that smile back on my face I get when I drive my Vette.