Pedders XA coilover shocks repeat failure?

[Timson]

They didn't go at exactly the same time there was about 400klms between the two. One failed on the way up to Parkes on Friday and the other failed on the way home to Traralgon on Monday. I agree the roads are shit up that way but I was going pretty easy as the wife hates hitting potholes in the car. I had two kids in the back and the boot had some luggage and a car fridge. The other suggestion from Pedders is the car may have been overloaded with weight, but if that is overloaded then the suspension still fails by design. How would you go putting 3 100kg guys in the back and filling the boot with grog and heading to Bathurst? Now that is what the car is designed for and the suspension design should reflect that!
Cheers, Tim.

[calais190]

I'm going to guess it's a mixture of more weight and poor road quality that breaks them... My car is almost always empty...

[Hos]

^^^^^^^
Nigel.

I think the shocks should last, regardless of selected ride height and road surface. These things are meant to be able to be set at X height, it shouldn't dramatically increase the risk of failure. As for the road surface, it'd have to be pretty ordinary to significantly impact the life span of the shock ( I'm thinking thousands of kilometers of corrugations etc). This is only my perspective, but surely a 'purpose built' component should have more longevity.

I wonder if Pedders are reading this thread? Perhaps they should be sent a link...

[duke5700]

Its cheap nasty shit with a pedders logo on it.. they have no influence on design. You can exactly the same crap from a few different manufacturers straight out of China. Its like when they they had TDSS Drieshafts and selling them for 3 times the price.. and trying to flog them off as their own.

[Xjas]

It's not that low, so I don't think the failure is due to the ride height.

Mine sits higher than yours so I doubt the height is an issue in my case either.
I dont understand how the shocks could be bottoming out to cause the damage, the ride height is adjusted on the bottom of the coilover assembly, not by adjusting the spring seat, so no matter where you set the ride height the spring and shock travel doesn't change so they should always bottom on the bump stop before the shock piston bottoms out.

[VendeTTR]

I've had my pedders XA's for a few years now and not one single issue apart from the rear spring being far too low. Ride great and handle great for a street car.

[VRIIClubby]

Interesting comment... From what I understand of it, you are telling us that Pedders is shit, King springs and Monroe are shit, and seeing SS317 couldn't tell the difference between any of that even when directly comparing it to the Koni/Bilsteins, then everything must be shit...

If nothing is good, we may as well go back to stock FE2/3...

Read again buddy..

"Those "branded" springs would make any shock feel like shit!" King Springs and Pedders are SHIT, made from crap quality steel and components on the cheap. thats a fact.

Not once did I say Monroe was crap, and you cant "Directly compare" a Koni/Bilsteins setup on a VL to the VE which is what SS317 said his Koni setup was on....need I continue? please read the whole comment mate.

Its cheap nasty shit with a pedders logo on it.. they have no influence on design. You can exactly the same crap from a few different manufacturers straight out of China. Its like when they they had TDSS Drieshafts and selling them for 3 times the price.. and trying to flog them off as their own.

Duke understands and see's the flaws in the pedders concept, how could you in a logical mindset say that they (Pedders) are good when you purchase a "fully adjustable" system that isnt "allowed" to be fully adjusted?
And as for King Springs, how many threads are there on here that go on and on and on and on about the quality issues? same springs at different heights etc etc.

[Magnum9]

They didn't go at exactly the same time there was about 400klms between the two. One failed on the way up to Parkes on Friday and the other failed on the way home to Traralgon on Monday. I agree the roads are shit up that way but I was going pretty easy as the wife hates hitting potholes in the car. I had two kids in the back and the boot had some luggage and a car fridge. The other suggestion from Pedders is the car may have been overloaded with weight, but if that is overloaded then the suspension still fails by design. How would you go putting 3 100kg guys in the back and filling the boot with grog and heading to Bathurst? Now that is what the car is designed for and the suspension design should reflect that!
Cheers, Tim.

Once one went the other would have been doing the job of two, so pretty much guaranteed to fail also.

[lmoengnr]

I dont understand how the shocks could be bottoming out to cause the damage

The shocks shouldn't be bottoming out, unless they're the wrong length. Even if the springs are 'coil bound', the shocks shouldn't bottom out. The travel should be limited by the bump stops. I think the actual damper cant handle the load of a VE, and the piston rod flexes, and chews out the seals.

[Xjas]

The shocks shouldn't be bottoming out, unless they're the wrong length. Even if the springs are 'coil bound', the shocks shouldn't bottom out. The travel should be limited by the bump stops. I think the actual damper cant handle the load of a VE, and the piston rod flexes, and chews out the seals.

I was refering what Scott Pedder had told SS317 as per the quote below, I agree that designed correctly the shock should not be able to bottom out hence I dont see how changing the ride height would save the shocks but I'm certainly no expert on the subject.

I was told by Scott pedder that setting them too low was making the rears fail, this was after I asked him why my new coilovers wouldn't get the rear of my car as low as all my mates VE's with XA's. He said they had made changes to them so they won't go as low to save the shocks, looked like the springs are just set higher to me. Sounded like a cheap fix to me.

[SS317]

Read again buddy..

"Those "branded" springs would make any shock feel like shit!" King Springs and Pedders are SHIT, made from crap quality steel and components on the cheap. thats a fact.

Not once did I say Monroe was crap, and you cant "Directly compare" a Koni/Bilsteins setup on a VL to the VE which is what SS317 said his Koni setup was on....need I continue? please read the whole comment mate.

No need to be a smart ass buddy

I never used the Walky as a comparison to the Ve, it was just my experience with those brands of shock and the reason why I wanted to try somthing differant.

I wonder if how hard you have the rear shocks set has anything to do with the failures?

[VRIIClubby]

No need to be a smart ass buddy

I never used the Walky as a comparison to the Ve, it was just my experience with those brands of shock and the reason why I wanted to try somthing differant.

I wonder if how hard you have the rear shocks set has anything to do with the failures?

SS317, I wasnt being a smartarse, apoligies if you feel I was...and i never said you did compare them, Calais190 made that statement and I clearly said you couldnt compare and that I didnt say Monroe was shit

IMHO after using them all, in all sorts of cars, they are the shittiest example available, sold on mass to the masses because of their price point, not their quality or R&D, the old saying of you get what you pay for rings true for everything in life,

The roads these two examples where driving on are seriously some of the shittiest roads getting around NSW, so maybe the damper settings are to hard, but they still shouldnt fail like quite a few people on here have experienced.

[SS317]

Yeah no worries.

Its fine to say the XA's are no good and so on but at the end of the day this dose nothing for the guys that have spent there cash and are stuck with them, I for one am happy with the the way my Ve performs with them and im only concerned with the failures guys are having.

[04cv8]

I know this thread is mainly about VEs being fitted with XAs and failing, but I've had these fitted to my 04 monaro for 2 years now and haven't had an issue. When i first had them fitted i wasnt happy with the ride height so i took it back in to have them drop it as far as they could go, they actually ended up removing the bottom collar, allowing the collar that holds the spring to sit as low as it could go (2 years no issues). Judging from previous threads on the XAs and this thread it seems that anything pre VE no issues. Were the Pedders XA coilovers produced before the VE was released? and what was the difference between the Extreme XAs and the XAs? were the Extreme XAs a revised product trying to eleminate the failures when fitted to VE?

[04cv8]

*were the supercar XAs a revised product trying to eliminate the failures when fitted to VE?