Looking for a softer ride. Car has 98K miles and want to replace shocks. Looking at Monroe. Any ideas on what brand is better.

Patrick

 

"Base" C5 suspension, Z51 or Z06?

 

Base" C5 suspension, Thanks Jack for any help you can give me>

 

Geeze, base suspension with 98k miles should be about as stiff as a marshmallow. The only thing that might be happening is that you are running out of travel with worn out stock shocks and that is allowing the car to hit the bump stops (or if you're lowered that could be the issue too).. Just about any shock should be better than what you have now, but most performance shocks are going to be stiffer than what came with your car.

Koni makes a shock that isn't their performance shock that has a very good ride. This is their "non adjustable" FSD shock.

Still, you need to make sure you aren't on the bump stops as that will make the car ride like a buckboard.

 

I just removed my factory shocks base coupe with 161K on it. Car rode very rough. Installed C5 Z06 shocks and rides much better. The old shocks were leaking and compressed very easy.

 

Base C5 suspension is about as SOFT as its going to get OEM Shock wise. Not many people ask for SOFTER shocks.

I agree. If your shocks are shot, you may be loosing suspension control and bottoming out.

Have you ever taken a sweeping high speed highway entrance and the car kind of skidded side ways across the pavement as you hit a little bump during the turn??..

That is POOR SHOCK CONTROL. I replaced the shocks on my 02 ZO6 at 50K miles with C6 ZO6 Shocks and I was in high speed turn heaven~!!
NO MORE BUTT PUCKER in high speed turns!!

Let us know what you think and what way you want to go.

BC

 

I replaced my 98 C5 base shocks at 85,000 miles with C6 Z06 shocks from now Cultrag Performance a forum sponsor. Wow, what a difference.

 

Tried the Monroe shocks on my '99. They fit perfectly but only lasted
about 15K miles of normal street driving. When GMParts house was
viable, they would sell C6 OEM shocks that fit the C5 and you could get north of 50K miles on them. Actually, if I told you how many miles I
would get a lot of flames. Had 4 sets of shocks during the 394K miles I
had the '99 and 2 set of shocks on my '04 with 182K miles. Mild street
driving on both cars and each car made trips to Alaska from Ann Arbor.

 

GMParts House now is Cultrag Performance - on this forum a lot. I also agree that if you want a softish ride, do not put anything harsher than the OEM shock on there - C6 OEM sounds good.

Mine has F45, which everyone picks on, but after 70k+ it is still functioning and provides a very comfortable highway ride on "tour" - and still stiffens up nicely on the harder settings.

I won't knock anyone for wanting comfort when doing long highway journeys, who needs the jarring of a stiff setup over pavement joints?

 

OP didn't mention if his car is lowered or not.

Our lowered Z06 does the sideways step Bill C describes, I've always assumed it's hitting the stops when it does that. Ride is pretty harsh... Form over function in our case. (truthfully I'd like to raise the car up but it's the wifes and she likes it slammed).

Bill do you think the C6Z shocks would do better than the C5Z on a lowered car?

 

In my opinion,,, The C6 ZO6 shocks are MUCH better BUT,,,, If your car is lowered a LOT, you need to do two things:

Figure out exactly how much suspension travle you have!

See if the shocks that you are running are running into the shock bump stop or bottoming out in the shock before the suspension bottoms out.

If the shocks that you are running are weak, it will not control the wheel when it hits a bump.

If the suspension bottoms out when you hit rough roads, the car will unsettle and not corner properly.

When you raise and lower a car suspension wise, you screw with the alignment. Please take that into consideration also.

Bill

 

Thanks for the response Bill. Always a class act.

I agree with your comments about lowering a car and it's effects, 100%. The car was lowered when we bought it 7yrs ago. I fully intended to bring the car back up a ways. But the wife said no... so we had the alignment checked when put new tires on the car. Had to look around for a shop that could actually get the car on the alignment rack though... It's a dream to drive on smooth pavement, but the moment you get into the rough roads it's a handful and it will quickly bash the front skids and scream slow down!

I really should look at the overall travel, but I already know the answer, not much... The guy who had the car before us ran the adjusters to the absolute limit. I guess the good news is he didn't use extended bolts. But I think you've raised some really good points. I don't know if it's bottoming the shock or the bump stop. It DOES have the bump stops still... Good shocks or bad, hard for them to do their job properly if they are barely moving before hitting the bump stop.

The more I think about this, I think I'm going to raise the car back up some, at least 1/2". Maybe the wife won't notice lol...

I'll put a set of the C6Z shocks on order when I do brakes in the next couple months.

But hey, it looks great!

Sorry if I took the thread off topic Patrick.

 

Thanks too all that responded to my original post on Shocks. I went ahead and installed Monroe shocks > works great.

 

As an ex-suspension engineer, my take is you may also be trying to make the suspension work outside its original design parameters.. Fine, if you know what you are doing and have made sure you are not introducing any nasty side effects, like bump steer. Most suspension geometries are engineered to deal with bump steer within a range either side of the normal ride height, but not necessarily outside of that range.

 

beyond agree.

when i see threads like this i pretty much assume a lot of the posters don't know what they are doing or they wouldn't be asking.

i really think more people slow their cars down when they start screwing with the suspension and don't know what they are feeling for when driving the finished result. increase bumpsteer, loss of compliance, many things all to chase 1 single goal

 

Glad I happened on this thread. When tires were replaced last year I was informed, due to cupping, new shocks are needed. I don't race or drive wild and want a soft ride. I drive a lot on rough country roads and gravel. Was quoted $600. What say you? Thanks.

 

Installing shocks is pretty darn easy. And for $600 you can buy all the tools you need including perhaps a used compressor, jack stands etc and the shocks. Look on YouTube for some examples of the job. Probably you have a savvy friend or neighbor who would help for the price of beer and pizza; check Craigslist for the tools used in your area, you will pay well under half price and find everything you need.

Good luck - Safety first!! Take your time.

 

Thanks but I'm in an RV park in the CA desert living on gravel with snow birds so heavy work isn't an option. Should I just replace with OEM?

 

I've been in that position - not to beat a dead horse but the labor shops charge to do shocks is about 60% of the bill, for such an easy job I'd look for a place to do it myself still.

You'll read a lot of opinions here about, well, everything but unless you're a tech guru, race the car etc, I'd go OEM. I've used cheap Monroes or KYB's for a supposedly softer ride on other vette's I've had, they were ok initially but don't last long, and get harsh pretty quickly. Chevy designed the car and chose the shocks it should ride on - I'm guessing they made the best choice.

Be glad you have standard shocks, I have the F55 suspension with the two way control - one shock is leaking at 71k miles, the rest are probably near EOL, and it's I'm told a $4500 in parts replacement to do all 4. There's a way to switch the car over to standard shocks which I plan to do.

Hope that makes you feel better about $600! Good luck.

 

LOL!! You can jack up ONE WHEEL at a time (use one jack stand) and change one shock at a time. It would be as intrusive to the RV park as changing a tire and checking the oil (hood open).

The new C6 ZO6 Shocks are around $260. new for all four from Gene Culley.

Bill