Magnetic Shocks? Service Required? Am I being told nonsense?
 

OK - so I bought a second hand C7 and was told 1 shock needed replacing, so I went ahead and purchased a full set of Johnny O'Connell shocks. The dealer fitted them for me but when I went to drive away there was a warning saying "suspension requires service". The dealer told me that because I replaced the standard shocks with the Johnny O'Connell ones, because they aren't "magnetic" that it will come up with that error - all the time!

Previously I asked whether I could get the magnetic ride upgrade but was told that I couldn't because I had the C7 Stingray base and not the other model that is compatible.

Does this sound right? I'm afraid I really don't know enough about shocks and the C7 to know - but it seems really strange?

Any advice / opinions are really appreciated

Thanks

No, all C7's have the dial on the center console to change driving modes.

OP, do you know what color your original shocks were?

PM me your VIN. I'll tell you exactly what options your car has.

Jeff V - apparently you have access to GMVIS. After you lookup his VIN, please post the MSRC or not results in this thread.

You should delete this post.

Did the dealer not notice the magnetic shocks when the car went up on the lift? Did they just disconnect the wires controlling them and ignore it? This makes no sense.
The only logic I can come up with is the dealer assumed by providing new shocks you wanted the MRC removed.

It sounds like the car probably did have magnetic ride to begin with and now that it's been replaced with conventional shocks it's throwing an error. You need to find someone that knows what they are doing to have it tuned out. When the magnetic ride shocks failed on my C6 I had them replaced with regular shocks, and the shop used a Tech 2 to keep the computer from throwing codes. It worked perfectly.

I'm not going to get too personal here, but all I'll say is cut this guy some slack. He's got a very non-typical car. But yes, it does have FE4. I PM'd him the full details.

Really? MRC was available in 2014 on non-Z51 C7's?

Ignore this, posts were updated while I was typing: Send Jeff V. your VIN to verify what your car is equipped with, we can't help too much if you don't know if you have mag ride or not.

It doesn't seem like your dealer is very helpful and you don't exactly just look at them to know whether they are mag ride shocks or not. If you have mag ride, you should have had a thin black wire with a rubber boot on it plugged into the top of the shocks in the engine bay. Open the hood, look down at the top of the shock, you should see a now loose black wire somewhere nearby as you didn't install mag ride shocks. Hopefully they didn't cut any wires out of the car if you did have mag ride.

Also, your dealer should have tried to prevent you from replacing your mag ride shocks with traditional units. Sounds like they didn't know what you had either. If it were my car, I would request the 3 good mag ride shocks be re-installed and purchase 1 new mag ride shock. The standard shocks would be listed in the for sale section. Hope they'll make it right!

Guys - I've bought a monster!!!!! It's an import into the middle east and it's got random brakes and the mag shocks - yes - it has the wires - I've been trying to upload a pic but I can't for some reason.

Anyway - this throws me into a whole new ball game - Jeff has kindly given me the full run down of what the car has - I'll go looking for half of it tomorrow! But it has the Z51 pack on it and mag shocks so it should have been eligible for the Mag ride suspension upgrade? Is that a fair assumption?

When I went to the dealer they said it was a base and therefore didn't qualify - now I find out =$1000 later that it did and I've just cut the cuts out of the suspension?

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...bf9e1e3b1.jpeg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...bd660fbfe.jpeg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...f348918b8.jpeg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...4a13969ce.jpeg

How do you know he has a 2014? It is not in this thread or in his profile.

Sounds to me like your dealer misinformed you. Base Stingrays can have magnetic shocks easily. Mine does, and the upgrade is available. But "magnetic" doesn't refer to the look of the shock, though they are black. It refers to the fluid inside the shock which has magnetic particles that respond to electric current by changing the viscosity of the fluid which in turn changes the dampening effect of the shock. You have circumvented that entire system by putting the off brand shocks on the car. The wire doesn't matter because the new shocks aren't magnetic and there's no place to attach the wire anyway. That's too bad because most people (but not all) believe the magnetic shocks to be worthwhile. The only way you can recover the MRC system here is to buy new magnetic shocks or put the old ones back on if they are still available. I wouldn't trust that dealer to do it though.

I looked at his other posts.

Even though he's got a 14 Z51 with FE4, it's got an export VIN. I don't know if GM is offering the upgrade software to those or not.

That's the least of the problems though. They cut the wires out of his car. Somebody is about to have a very expensive day, and it better not be the poor guy who owns the car. We can talk all day about owners being knowledgeable about their cars, but that doesn't give someone who should know better the excuse to start hacking parts out of it.

Yeah this looks bad to me.

Thanks again Jeff for all your help

yeah - today hasn't been my greatest day! To get parts here is so expensive - I needed new front rotors and one of the shocks needed replacing I was told. The rotors I bought, the back fitted but the front didn't because I got the JL9 replacement not the JL55 - no clue! The shocks, I was told this was a base even after I asked for the Mag update (which I thought was a physical thing, not just software) - again - no clue. Bought the update to get carplay on the infotainment unit - that didn't work - still working out what's gone wrong there. Then add to that the vibration at 2000 revs and the clunk at low torque at 1500. Then add that it was sold with a warranty, but now find out is limited to QR10k - like $2750 - can't get the thing washed for that at the moment!

Ye know - Just going to take it to the track here on the weekend and throw it round and start again next week!

I never knew owning a corvette would be so character building :)