Compare 30-year Old vs. New Bilstein Shock Absorbers

Replacing shocks on a 1991 GMC Syclone. I’ll show how to compare the two.

[lol]

Honestly, for how old those shocks are I'd say they held up fantastic. I've seen oem Ford trucks shocks no longer rebound being 3 years old, and that's being a gas charged shock as well. Those bilsteins are great shocks

[WXUZT]

I was looking up YouTube for precisely this kind of practical

[SirManlyPowers]

Those old shocks look pretty good. Generally it seems old/warn shocks compress easily and either return slowly, or not at all.

[archstanton]

Thanks, good review, I've seen other brands that took no force to move, or they just blew out completely

[briang]

Even the 30 year old bilsteins still seem like they are working pretty well.

[NITROUSnBIASPLYS]

Factory built shocks sometimes have different valving. I'm pretty sure bilstein and rancho both revolve the shocks for factory parts on vehicles

[lorencing]

Nice vid, thx. Did it fix the road bouncing or is it the same? I have a strange feeling that my car also needs replacement shocks although the standard test does not show it.

[marcusmcclelland]

They can go tight too. ive seen that a fair few times

[jasontrevis]

Pressure?
The gas is there to stop aeration of the oil, not to provide resistance to compression.
I dare say that they are valved differently as well as having more stiction due to newer seals.

[pullbackbaby]

I have a Kia minivan and recently took out the KYB rear shocks after 80, 000 miles thinking they might need changing out. I bought a set of new sachs from RockAuto. There's not many options for my vehicle. I did a comparison of the old and new and the KYB was much much stiffer and didn't recompress after I pushed it down. The brand new sachs was like a sponge. I could easily push down on it and it would bounce right back and you could hear the fluid swishing around inside. Is this normal? Watching your video it's telling me that my brand new shocks are worse than my old KYB. :-/

[SCoetzer]

Bilsteins are made to be serviced. You buy a set and keep them for life. Why did you not just service them?

[charleschamberlain]

There was nothing wrong with the old shocks 😅

[onlythewise]

so that how you can tell its worn out, thanks

[lourod]

What are you using for a jack on the lift tray. I just purchased a 4 post lift and don’t want to spend $800 on the OE jack.

[preflightdrip]

Probably are original I talked to a guy who worked for them in early 2000s and still does and they used to do a bunch of gm contracts. A lot of them are made in Ohio now

[judemcgarrell]

Could bilstein shocks work on Nissan vehicles??

[BigniceJohn]

Those Bilsteins have a lifetime warranty. I hope the replacements were free from Bilstein...

[Mike-xtot]

I'd take those 35 year old shocks over 90 percent of shocks today that are made where everything is made.

[humbertolopez]

Just bought a 03 Silverado it came with bilstein just is making ugly noises on front end left on highway and uphills. Took a look and one shock has a lot of mud/oil compared to the other one. Should I replace it?

[willieurus]

If the shock is not leaking then how did it loose quality I assume u figured out that the old shocks were good still