[mena661]

Wanting to buy some shocks from gmpartsdirect and they list a shock with sport suspension and a shock without sport suspension. No part numbers listed on their website. Anyone know which one's I should get? I have Eibach Pro-kit springs. Thanks.

 

[Sting Ya]

Sport suspension should be the ZOK option/ The FE2 is the stock Base model and the FE3 is the stock GXP

 

[mena661]

I thought the Z0K shocks were the same as the stock GXP shocks? ?

 

[Chew]

I thought there were two Z0Ks. On the 2.4 it's the same as the stock GXP suspension but the Z0k on the GXP is actually even stiffer still. IIRC that is

 

[WillBeck]

Base (fe2) sport (fe3) and Z0k. All unique systems. Your car likely has FE2 now. The choice to upgrade is yours.

 

[mena661]

Mine's a GXP. Guess I should've explained this before. The reason I'm confused is both shocks are listed in the GXP section of that website. It could be that the "sport suspension" is the GXP ZOK shocks.

EDIT: According to this there are no GXP ZOK shocks so maybe those are the GMPP shocks.

http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/f48/gxp-zok-shocks-operating-range-54378/#post814563

 

[TomatoSoup]

Best thing is call Tom at CrateEngineDepot (forum sponsor). He'll find out exactly what you need/want and will give you a good price.

Please note that GMPartsDirect show very low prices, but often very high shipping. So compare after you find what the shipping costs will be.

 

[mena661]

I'll just do that Tomato. Thanks all for the help.

 

[DaveOC]

Springs, shocks, and sway bars and the available options from GM are all explained in the first message in this thread:

http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/f42/suspension-packages-usage-58501/

This message was written by the GM engineer that had a lot to do with the design of the Solstice suspensions.

 

[kwtoxman]

Yup, lots of bad info here. Read the link provided by DaveOC. And mena is correct. You'll see the FE3 GXP shocks are the same as the Z0K shocks. Been known for a long time.

IMO, the FE3 GXP / Z0K shocks are pretty poor. Many early threads about leaks. I had one leaking with less than 3000 km on the car. I'd go to a decent auto parts place and buy a quality manufacturer gas shock equivalent.

 

[WillBeck]

Yup, lots of bad info here. Read the link provided by DaveOC. And mena is correct. You'll see the FE3 GXP shocks are the same as the Z0K shocks. Been known for a long time.

IMO, the FE3 GXP / Z0K shocks are pretty poor. Many early threads about leaks. I had one leaking with less than 3000 km on the car. I'd go to a decent auto parts place and buy a quality manufacturer gas shock equivalent.

No no no no no

Coming from the off road world, there is nothing so important as the correct shock. Those autozone buys are only adequate for your soccer mom van or boring daily driver.

Bilsteins are EXCELLENT shocks. Stick with the bilsteins, or an aftermarket performance equivalent. Otherwise you'll sacrifice the best thing about this car, the handling.

 

[kwtoxman]

No no no no no

Coming from the off road world, there is nothing so important as the correct shock. Those autozone buys are only adequate for your soccer mom van or boring daily driver.

Bilsteins are EXCELLENT shocks. Stick with the bilsteins, or an aftermarket performance equivalent. Otherwise you'll sacrifice the best thing about this car, the handling.

Sigh. Bilstein may be great in general , but the OEM GXP solstice bilstein shocks haven't shown any reliability, to put it mildly.

http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/f12/blown-rear-struts-am-i-only-one-40709/
http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/f12/shock-failure-shock-leak-leaking-shock-8223/

Note how I never said go with the soccer mom parts store and options. Ignore forum experience if you wish. I don't care as I'm running some of the best suspension available for the car. KW V3s.

 

[jeffgtx]

The link Dave provides is the definitive go to fir the suspension information. Everyone should download and save that little text file.

Another thing to note is that there is a gmpp upgrade suspension that is between the stock gxp setup and the full zok setup. I went that route because I didn't want the lowered stance of the zok pkg.

Tom at CED can get you all the stuff you need.

 

[TomatoSoup]

Sigh. Bilstein may be great in general , but the OEM GXP solstice bilstein shocks haven't shown any reliability, to put it mildly.

http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/f12/blown-rear-struts-am-i-only-one-40709/
http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/f12/shock-failure-shock-leak-leaking-shock-8223/

I think that's a bit of an overreaction ("to put it mildly"). If the factory shocks "haven't shown any reliability" we'd see a LOT more posts on failures. The last addition to those threads was in 2008 (most were a lot earlier). That suggests some infant mortality, certainly, but not a hugely unreliable part.

 

[kwtoxman]

I think that's a bit of an overreaction ("to put it mildly"). If the factory shocks "haven't shown any reliability" we'd see a LOT more posts on failures. The last addition to those threads was in 2008 (most were a lot earlier). That suggests some infant mortality, certainly, but not a hugely unreliable part.

Most people don't take the time to bother to look at their shocks/struts, out of side out of mind, and many times there won't be enough fluid to leak onto the ground, so it is more than reasonable to expect there to be lots of unreported leaking shocks. Not to mention those who don't bother to post on the board. And just because it is old threads doesn't mean it isn't out there. All of the threads on the 06 clunk are old now and not updated, it doesn't mean a ton of 06's aren't out there still clunking away. The absence of recent evidence is not the recent evidence of absence.

 

[TomatoSoup]

Sure. I'll bet there are other failures out there. Doesn't make it a rampantly unreliable part though.

 

[DaveOC]

You have to be very careful of reading too much into the frequency of reported problems on an internet forum. Many, many people join a forum because they are having a problem and searching for an answer. Compare the number of problems reported to the number of forum users coming here to say that they haven't had any problems at all with their Solstices.

Human nature is at work here, and the problems tend to be magnified.

:dunno:

.