Shock Absorber Specification

[yarrwarri]

Hi Guys,
I'm considering upgrading my shock absorbers to cope with a crossing of the Tanami (plus other outback trips) mainly to cope with expected corrugations. I know that gas filled shocks are less likely to overheat and lock up than oil filled units. I can get replacements from Bilstien (gas) but I want to know if the OEM current standard fitment are gas or oil. One dealer I called said they were oil, I want confirmation. Can anyone help?
Thanks.

[Transporter]

The gas filled shockers are oil filled as well.

[Hillbilly]

Here is a good article about shockies Everything you wanted to know about Shock Absorbers - 4x4Review Off Road Magazine


Drive slower and don't heat them up so much on corrugations. Not always possible and sometimes worse.

Used to try and get a speed that kept us up on the tops and that varied with the distance between the tops.

Will never forget a rental car in Karajini NP doing about 25kph on bad corrugations and steadily shaking itself to pieces as they were dropping into every one. The Coaster we were in was doing about 60 and floating across the tops As well as it could LOL

[brad]

Hi Guys,
I'm considering upgrading my shock absorbers to cope with a crossing of the Tanami (plus other outback trips) mainly to cope with expected corrugations. I know that gas filled shocks are less likely to overheat and lock up than oil filled units. I can get replacements from Bilstien (gas) but I want to know if the OEM current standard fitment are gas or oil. One dealer I called said they were oil, I want confirmation. Can anyone help?
Thanks.

The front's are probably oil, the rears are probably gas over oil.

It's a moot point really. The question is, do the OEM dampers have sufficient compression & rebound damping to control severe & frequent spring oscillations over an extended distance? Do the OEM dampers have sufficient remaing life for the trip?

I've never heard of dampers locking up when they overheat (but I've not heard of a lot of stuff). Doesn't the gas stop the oil from foaming which then means you maintain the damping resistance?

Personally, if the vehicle has more than 50,000km on it & has already had a bit of a hammering then I'd do the swap. My personal preference is koni because I like the initial soft ride whereas Billies are a bit harsh. Both are excellent quality so it's a personal preference thing.

[Dartiguan]

One thing that has always been an issue with me is the ride in the Tiguan. It is taut, and after 75,000km is still a tight ride, so I guess I should be happy that it is so robust. Don't misunderstand me, on a good highway road there is no issue (which is what most German roads are anyway) but because of its short wheelbase it can be a firm ride. Because of this, I am going to specify Adaptive Chassis Control in my new Tiguan (mine is a 2011), for petrolheads out there what I want is a ride like my old Peugeot or Renault. This thread is about shock absorbers so I wondered if new shocks (like the Koni's suggested) would give a more compliant and damped ride than the factory fitted shock absorbers? Does anyone have experience with changing the shock absorbers or does anyone have ACC and can confirm the ride is more acceptable?

[Arctra]

I don't have specific experience with car shocks, but I have some experience servicing and playing with the valving in my motorcycles. From experience, the OEM valving tends to be done to a pretty tight budget and they aren't great - often suffer from compression spikes due to poor flowing of oil through the valve openings and past the shim stack. Aftermarket ones tend to perform much better but there is no "one size fits all" valving solution so to get the feel you want you're going to need to at least play with the compression and rebound shim stacks. On motorcycles that is relatively easy as valve kits, shim kits, etc are readily available. Cars however tend to just have sealed generic shocks.

I believe Bilstein shocks can be "tuned" - but there are 2 versions of Bilsteins. From memory it is "Blue" and "Red" and one of them is tuneable while the other one is cheaper but not really any different to other shocks on the market. I cannot say I have ever heard of anyone other than hardcore racers playing with their shock damping on their cars though. It is a pretty common practice on motorcycles though.

I reckon you're going to be best served by putting some decent quality (non-budget) shocks on like the Koni's and then driving the terrain as best you can to suit them as Hillbilly suggested.

[Dartiguan]

Another solution for yarrwarri might be air suspension, or is this too expensive or not an option for a small SUV like the Tiguan? (Apologies if this is a silly suggestion but it works well on the Touareg and Prado's I have driven)

[yarrwarri]

Thanks for your input on aftermarket suggestions guys. VW technical department have confirmed standard fitment are oil, front & rear.
Dobinsons have also confirmed they will custom supply 30mm lift springs, front & rear without too much compromise to the driving dynamics. I'm struggling with the possibility the new springs will not allow enough camber adjustment to the front end. It's a punt I want entirely in my favour.

[brad]

I doubt there is any camber adjustment at the front beyond utilising the slop in the mounting holes. The rear probably has camber adjustment in the top arm.

IIRC, a 20mm drop is worth about 1/4 degree of camber so going up 20-30mm will be about the same in the other direction (more +ve). You can ceck on the alignment machine by jacking up the vehicle on the x-member by 30mm while on the ramps or loading it full of bags of cement if you want to check the drop change.