diitto

One year ago, I had my corvette in for an oil change at my local dealership (who specialize in Corvette maintenance). They told me my magnetic shocks were "seeping oil". It wasn't bad but they needed to be watched. They cleaned them and away I went.

The car is a 2012 Grand Sport with 16,500 miles on it. I bought it new.

The "shock" (pun intended) was when they told me the cost to replace all four shocks was on the order of $3500 ($750 per shock plus labor) and that was a year ago so likely a bump higher now. Plus a wheel alignment once the replacement is completed.

I don't jack up cars anymore but I did lay down in the street today and was able to feel all four shocks. The right front one felt a little "oily". The other three felt pretty dry but they are all coated with a pretty heavy coating of what I believe is black brake dust or just dirt in general.

Some have suggested I change them. Some have suggested that a little bit of oil out of any shock is not unusual. Never have any of the four shocks dropped so much as a single drop of oil on the garage floor.

Monday I am going in for maintenance again. Oil change and a couple other things. And I asked them to put the car on the lift and let me come look at the shocks with them. So that's the plan.

What input or advice might you folks offer??? Any thoughts on "get em changed" or "leave em alone"??? Any feedback would be much appreciated.

thanks. bob

Gary '09 C6

There are several threads discussing this...the MSRC shocks may become covered in dirt/grime and appear to have seeped a small amount of oil.
Clean them off thoroughly and keep an eye on them...unusual for failure to occur at such low mileage, although it is always possible.

billyboy47

Keep us posted.

Bruze

Yes, there is a long thread here about that with a post just in the past day or so.

How's "Old Billy" tonight?

HOXXOH

I'd wipe them off again and then leave them alone. However, if you decide to change them, I'd buy the ones you took off as backups for my car.

AORoads

What HOX is also saying is, the dealer is definitely charging you full retail for the shocks. Yes, they are more expensive than conventional shocks but in the past year or so the price has come down to about $450 each. And those are real GM shocks, not knockoffs. Right there, that's a "discount" of about $1200. If the dealer is that good at service, I'd bet you could bring in your own shocks and have them install them.

I'd agree to look at the shocks on a lift which don't seem to need replacing, and act accordingly. They'll put the car on a lift to do the oil change.

Jughead

Curious to see what my dealer says. I was at 1 dealer for wheel balancing last fall and he said they looked like they were leaking. I said it should be covered under warranty. He said they don't need replaced yet.

I'm going in a couple weeks for an annual inspection to the dealer where I first bought it. I still have a few months left on bumper-bumper warranty, I bought it CPO.

I figure if they say they're not leaking so bad to be replaced (while still under warranty and saving $$), next year right before annual inspection I'll wipe each shock down right before taking her in.

billyboy47

This morning I'm doing great. How are you doing, Bruce?

diitto

I did go hunting and found another recent post about these shocks that you guys mentioned. Found it here,

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...s-failure.html

Part way down that page, Rick T talked about and quoted the first part of a GM Corporate Bulletin on the subject of "seeping" (considered OK) versus leaking (not OK) on shocks and other components. After a quick Google search I found where GM appears to put out this same document every year and just update it to include the current year.

One document I found even shows cartoons of shock absorbers with oil in various stages of coating the part with "ok - don't replace" and "not ok - replace" nomenclature.

Interesting also to see where you are saying the price of these shocks has come down considerably in the past year. I will, of course, ask tomorrow what they cost NOW whether I decide to change them or not. But on the other side of cost, the original poster in that other post I pasted above from just last month said he just got a quote for nearly $5k to change his four magnetic shocks and do a wheel alignment. My goodness, do they use gold flakes for the magnetic medium in the fluid???

His car is ALSO a 2012 Grand Sport, as is mine. And he only has 5900 miles.

So, two more questions.

1. Do you think it hurts these shocks for the car to sit and not be driven a lot?? Is that perhaps hard on the seals???

2. Does anyone think the magnetic shocks they are building today are any better than the ones they were building in 2012???

Appreciate all the feedback. thanks. bob

Bruze

Fine thanks.

Winter finally got here, now Imma waiting for spring!

IansInGarage

I have a '05 with magnetic suspension. 85k miles. All my shocks have so much seepage, that I can't read the stickers underneath them until I wipe them down. In my past experience no shock seal fails like this, typically you'll see a solid run and will hear suspension bottom out. If you really want to know, listen and see if there is any loud noises when hitting bumps/imperfections in road. You can also read the tire, especially if the tires have some mileage on them. There are lots of pictures online to show you what to look for.

EvanZR1

People worry about this WAY more than they should, per GM it's normal for the MSRC shocks to have a film of oil on them. The ONLY time you need to replace them is if they are showing a defined leak (as shown in the TSB). The problem is that there are a LOT of dealers and shops out there that don't have a clue about this technology, and think if there's any oil film, that it's a leak. Many of them have probably never even seen the TSB about this, much less actually read it, and even if they had, if they can get you to buy new shocks (especially at the prices they are quoting), it's a big profit for them. Honestly if you did have them replaced, I would demand the old shocks back as proof to make sure they didn't just wipe them down to clean them up and charge you without even changing them.

I'm not aware of any serious issues with 2012 shocks versus earlier/later and I did a LOT of research on it before buying my 13 as I specifically wanted MSRC. To answer you're questions, yes it's probably a little harder on the seals to sit and not be driven, but the bigger question was how long did it sit. My car often only gets driven once a week, but I don't consider that sitting for a long period. If the car had been sitting for year(s) at a time without being driven, then I might worry about it, but as long as it was driven once or twice a month, that should be plenty to keep all the seals/gaskets from having issues. As to whether the replacement shocks built today are any better, I would doubt it. They are made to the same spec as the ones on the car, you're not going to get gen 3 (C7) MSRC shocks/parts, nor would you want to as it wouldn't work properly.

BTW, I just checked RockAuto and they are showing the price as $434.79ea for the front and $364.99ea for the rear. That's $1,602.56 for all four, which you should not need. Unlike traditional shocks, you only need to replace the one that is failed if you actually have a true leak (not in pairs or entire sets). So your shop is basically going to charge you almost $2,000 for labor on all four.

EuroRod

I recently changed all my shocks to Bilstein sports. It made all the difference in the world in the way the car now handles. I had my guy tune out the F55 shocks.

So, that being said, I have 4 F55 shocks that have about 50k miles on them. Never in the rain. Never an issue. Look almost new.

Make me an offer if you're interested.

HOXXOH

By their very nature of being an electro-magnetic device, they attract dirt and minute iron particles that are on the roads where you drive. Those particles are sometimes oily. Once the car is shut off, some of those particles fall off, yet the oil remains. Dusty roads will tend to build up dirt with the oil and driving through water puddles will wash them off.

Dealers far more often than indies will push new mag shocks, since the profit margin is really high. Anytime someone tells you your shocks are shot, wipe them down, drive another 1000 miles. and re-inspect.

I'm at 142K on my F55 car and still waiting for the first failure.

Evander Holyfield

I was the poster from the other post. 6,300mi or so on the car now, no issues in ride harshness in either Tour or Sport modes. If there was a true failure, you'd know it. I had an old 300ZX with a shock failure, and the ride quality was unbearable.

Show the TSB to your dealer/mechanic (a .pdf is posted of it in the other thread). With 16,500mi on your car, all 4 would not fail. There's just no way. Same with mine. As soon as I get mine on a lift, I'm going to clean mine off (they're really not even that dirty), and just monitor. I'm not sure if my dealer was intentionally trying to rip me off OR if they just didn't know of the TSB regarding the leaking. Maybe a combination of both. Either way, I'm done with them.

billyboy47

You and everyone else on the East coast.

Jughead

What did the dealer have to say about the TSB?

diitto

Are there actual replacement magnetic shocks from any vendors OTHER than GM??? A real competitive vendor for these parts??? Or if you want to just replace the functionality (computers and all) that is there currently, are you forced to buy GM???

EvanZR1

ACDelco is the only supplier for MSRC shocks, but as I pointed out they are available from lot's of suppliers (RockAuto, Amazon, Cultrag, GMPartsDirect, etc), with good pricing. Yes, they are more expensive than traditional shocks, but not by that much. If you want to go regular shocks in place of MSRC, you can get simulators for about $250/set, but you must replace all MSRC shocks to do this.

diitto

Thanks for all the good feedback.. Much appreciated. Last year they told me the shocks were something like $750 each (don't have the paper in front of me and backs and fronts weren't exactly the same but that's a close number for any of the four) and the rest, maybe $500, was labor. Then an alignment was needed on top of that.

As I laid on the ground and was able to reach around the tire and feel each shock pretty well, the right front felt a bit oily. The other three just felt way dirty, especially on what I would call the "top side" of the shock as they angle down. It was the real black, brake dust like dirt but they didn't really feel oily, other than again a film of oil I felt on the right front.

Regarding how long the car sits, I drive it at least once a week but maybe only for a few miles. But it never sits for months at a time.

I am heading to the dealer in a bit over an hour armed with the information you guys have supplied. I really appreciate the help. I will, at a minimum, find out today's prices for these shocks.

The one thing that keeps me thinking they are not that bad, or perhaps not even bad at all based on things you've said, is that I've never seen a single drop of oil on the garage floor. Not one. And that's been with me watching now for a year since last year when they told me they were "seeping". Hard to believe I have a very serious leak if never a drop of oil makes it to the ground.

thanks for all the help. I will report back later...