I discovered the following while doing the brakes on the truck today. I guess this would explain why it's been riding terribly as of late. I bought the assemblies second hand from a friend of mine when I got my truck, they only had like 10k miles on them when I installed them. Here's what 5 winters does to Bilsteins in Canada.

Anybody ever have this happen to them? Bilstein won't cover this under their warranty since I'm not the original order. Now I have to decide if I want to go back to the same setup or go with something else. I need a bit of a level on the truck to fit the 34's so going back to stock isn't an option.

 

How many miles did you get out of them? Just ordered mine.

 

They have less thank 40k miles on them.

 

Not very many miles. I think your truck sitting for long periods doesn't help heaps and add in the winters, not a good combo. Whatever you replace them with, I'd try and hose them down every now and again.

 

Looking at my options I'll likely go with another set of these with new mounts, or the Rancho Quick Lift assemblies. The truck gets undercoated every fall and hosed down in the spring, suspension parts are hard to keep clean though.

 

I plan to get a pressure washer wand that has a bit of a curve/kink to it for those hard to reach places that the hose just can't get to. Might be worth a look at to make the job quick and simple.

 

I wash my vehicles after every snow if at all possible. Helps a lot with rust issues.

 

I'd love to wash it after every drive in the snow, but I don't have a garage so using a hose when it's -15* isn't the most pleasant thing. I have a feeling the mount might have failed causing undue pressure on the shock body.

 

Well, in the winter I use a touchless car wash that I know can fit a truck. And they tend to close below -12C/10F, so that's what 'if possible' means. Garage does help a lot even without washing, it tends to hover around 0/32 deg inside most of the winter, and a lot of the snow just falls off and does less damage.

I think that isn't a terribly common breakage. That's unfortunate.

 

There are never positive Bilstein posts when talking about trucks from the salt belt.
Most of the threads are cosmetic, not a shock that has fallen apart.

What is the usual Bilstean warranty? Do they typically warranty a 6 year old shock with maybe 50k + miles?