I am getting ready to replace my front bags and need advice. I have about 70k miles on my 2004 and am not sure if I should replace my shocks also or just get new bags.

I will probably go with the Gen IIs up front and do the backs later but I am not sure what to do with the shocks. Need advice!

 

stick with OEM shocks

my bilstein came apart and tore my airspring

lucky I was only going 5 mph

new oem feels just as stiff as the bilsteins IMO

 

The Bilstein does not have an air connection and therefore does not adjust according to load as the stock shocks do. That said, I went with Gen II's and Bilstein's all around when my fronts failed. I'm very happy.
You pays your money...

good luck.

 

I think I am going to go with the Arnott and Bilstein kit. I hope it works out...

 

i just did all my bags at 106k on an 04 and i wish i did the shocks at the same time, they seemed fine with my OEM bags, but it is pretty bouncy with the new ones
might aswell do them now, i don't think it adds anything to the labour cost or difficulty if you do it yourself

 

I love Bilstein. They make fantastic shocks. You will love them!

 

I think you said you want to do front only. If that is the case, do not change only the front shocks. Either leave the stock shocks or change out all 4. At that point you might as well do all 4 bags as well.
good luck

 

We have all the OEM suspension components available below!

Click HERE to order or for more information.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Jason

 

I have had bad shocks for a while now. bouncy as hell on the highway. in order to spread out the cost, I'm doing a bit at a time. i know it's more time consuming this way, but at least I'm doing it myself and not paying labor.

I had never worked on my suspension myself before tonight. i read and referred to the article on how to remove/replace the rear springs on allroadfaq.com and figured I could follow the same instructions for putting in bilsteins. I wanted to do this myself to know if I could do it again myself if the airbags failed later. No sense in spending $850 on Arnott springs if my oem ones are not leaking, ya know. But if/when they do leak, now I know I can do them myself!

One big issue I would like to point out. On my 2003 6 speed allroad, the rear shock caps were not 12mm allens. I don't know the exact size, but I think they were 13mm if I had to guess. This was a real nuisance. The night before, I had made a trip to Sears to pickup a 12mm allen wrench since that was the main tool that I didn't have. Low and behold, I got everything apart and the 12mm wrench was too small. [cursing]

It was 8:45pm and all stores that might have a bigger size were about to close and I live 20 min from town. I drove my wife's car (lucky to have another car to drive) to my in-laws and my rummaged through my father-in-law's tools. He didn't have the right size allen either. But I was able to improvise. I found a chisel in his garage that had a hex shaped handle. It fit perfectly into the cap on the top of the shock. Then I put a cresent wrench on it and voila.

Another point where I got stuck. The bolts that hold the oem shock in the airbag are 16mm. You do need a deep socket for those. My spark plug socket worked great for pulling them out. I assumed the Bilsteins nuts would be the same size. Nuts... They were 17mm. I didn't have a deep 17mm socket. Luckily my neighbor had one at 10pm. It also took a while to figure out how to stop the shock shaft from spinning when tightening on the 17mm nut. The tip of the shock shaft has a hex shaped hole inside for a 5mm allen wrench. I put a vise-grip on the 17mm deep socket and this freed up the square hole in the socket to stick the 5mm allen wrench in there to hold the shaft while tightening. I had to call a friend who has done the bilsteins on his allroad to figure this out otherwise, I'd still probably be monkeying with it.

Getting the shock assembly out and then back into the car was no picnic, but I think I have it down now. I started at 7pm tonight and got done around 11pm, including time spent getting everything organized, jacking up all four wheels, making a trip to the in-laws to get the cap off the shock, eating a quick dinner that my wife made and stumbling through the allen/deep socket cap reinstall. I'm going to drive it to work tomorrow with one oem passenger side rear and the one new bilstein drivers side rear shock. I can't imagine this will cause any problems in one day as it felt fine on the test ride tonight. Back to it tomorrow night!

 

I couldn't find any way to comment or submit feedback or contact them after registering and logging in. I'd like to make the comments about the 12mm allen being incorrect for my model year (2003) and note the trick to reinstalling the cap (all mentioned above). Definitely like to have others learn from my experience.