Mag ride shock failure
 

2014 Z51 M7, 44k miles on my car, and 3 of the 4 shocks are blown. The front 2 are seeping and just making the shock bodies oily, the rear passenger shock is outright dripping fluid into a puddle on the garage floor, while the rear driver's is bone dry and seemingly fine. I understand shocks are a wear item, but 44k miles seems very premature for this type of an outright failure. The local dealer here in SD quoted me $3,600 to do it with no assistance from GM offered, where my previous dealer in TX that I have a great relationship with said they would be able to get me some goodwill assistance from GM with the final bill costing me $1,500-2,000 or so. As much as I'd love to go back to my TX dealership, the 1,800-mile roundtrip just doesn't make sense so I went ahead and ordered 4 brand new ACDelco replacement shocks from RockAuto for a total price of $1,281 with my discount code after tax/shipping and will go ahead and just do the replacement myself. Sounds like book rate is only something like 2.5 hours so I figure if I can get each corner done in an hour I'll be happy since this will be my first time doing Corvette shocks.

Has anyone else experienced a shock failure/replacement? With 3 of 4 gone bad, I'm thinking it's not just a fluke and it'll become a real issue as more and more C7's get up there in miles. 4 1/2 of the car's 5 year life have been in TX which has mostly great quality roads. The roughest roads the car has ever seen are typically on cross-country roadtrips while in Tour or Eco mode. I only use Sport when the road quality calls for it. I am fully lowered on stock bolts and have been for most the car's life; not sure if that hurts anything but I'm sure it didn't help either.

No problems so far on a 2014, but I only have 11K on the clock. I ride in Sport mode around 50% of the time, but not lowered at all. I did extend the B2B, GM warranty through 2022 up to 60K and the Mag Ride shocks are included in that warranty.

Smart, I'm sure one set of replacement shocks would make it worth it! Before it expires make sure you do a good inspection of the shocks for any seepage or leaks.

I had a rear replaced under warranty, around 34k miles. I feared that they wouldn't replace it, so I purchased a new one on Ebay as well.... I had the dealer replace the warranty shock, went home and put the other new shock on the other side, so 2 new rears. The ebay shock was only around 300 bucks and was new.

Nice deal, glad you got a new rear set at least. How are your fronts looking? Is your car a 2014 as well? I'm wondering if the shocks were revised in later years to fix the durability issue or if this will end up plaguing all C7 models w/MRC?

Sold my '14 Z51 with 52K on the clock last August with no issues with MRC shocks

I wonder if the sudden failure of mine had anything to do with sitting in winter storage for 5 months? It was in my heated garage all winter, but the first time the car sat for so long since it was driven year-round down in TX until we moved to SD last fall.

No, 2016. And it blew at a track event with DSC controller installed....started rubbing the inner liner which brought my attention and saw the metallic oil on the inner wheel.

Very interesting; there goes my 2014 theory. I forgot to mention, I did have the Chevy Performance updated calibration performed last year!

I had the update done when they installed the shock..... of course removed the DSC before I took it in (which I later sold).

Smart move. I looked at the DSC but tough to justify the cost along the mass amounts of time and effort needed to really get it dialed in properly to make it beneficial enough to justify the price. Jim Mero seemed to do a really good job getting there things setup nicely.

I just extended the warranty on my Z. If the shocks fail, the cost of the warranty is worth it.

Hindsight is 20/20...wish I would have! Good lesson for anyone else out there on the fence about it though.

A search here will probably show you that leaks are not unusual, or at least posts about such aren't. Seems to me I recall it reported of dealers telling owners leaks were "normal." :lol:

I found 2 other issues of it while searching before making this thread. One around 50k miles and another around 60k. "Normal" AKA they don't know how to make a better part cost-effectively...

At 28k miles, all four mag shocks on our 2017 Z51 have enough oily residue on the outside that the Tech suggested replacing them while still under warranty. Since we have the GM extended warranty that covers the shocks, there's no rush.
There is a GM bulletin telling the dealerships that a certain amount of residue is normal, but I couldn't find a copy on the 'net.

I'd love to see a copy of this if anyone has it. So strange that 1 of mine is bone dry and clean. IMO, if they're willing to do it now under warranty I would go ahead with it and then let your extended warranty cover another set before it's up.

I just traded in my TT for a C7 and it had mag ride. I do believe all cars with Mag ride get it from GM...it had 85,000 miles and 8 years old...no issue with the shocks.

do you have the FE4 suspension?

Yes. Appears C7 FE2/4/6 all use the same shocks.