GroundControl's blew my AGX.. replace one or replace all?
 

.. I should have taken these damn Ground Controls out a lot sooner. Most horrible suspension part ever made. At least for anything but straight and smooth roads.

As you know, Ground Controls are so small that they leave minimal shock travel and they are so narrow that you cannot fit dust boots over them. Driving through a nice winter with lots of snow, salt and dirt stuffing up my fenders, i collected a lot of sh!t that eventually contributed to one of my AGXs being completely gone.




Now.. what should I do, replace the blown one or get new struts all around again? I was in the process of swapping GCs for Maxspeeds right now but what i'll try is putting my stock struts in with 4th gen stock springs, which i have laying around from my 4th gen. Maybe that'll make the ride a little bit lower.


But if one strut is blown, does that mean that the others are not that far behind? It's unlikely that I'd be getting AGXs again, not worth the price, i don't care much for the adjustability factor.. But if it's probable that the others are going to last a long time, it's still cheaper to replace 1 strut than to get 4 new GR2s...


what do you guys think?


thanks

I would switch out both springs and struts. You're only asking for the struts to go again.

Springs are getting swapped obviously, since I am not going back to the ground controls..
but should i get ALL new struts even though only 1 is blown? Does it mean that the others are going to go soon aswell? These struts are still pretty fresh, maybe 15-20k miles on them tops.

as long as the other 3 look fine and perform ok then leave them. Have KYB do an exchange on them if possible, i know a kid by me had KYB swap out both his fronts after a year and being dropped almost 3inches.

what springs are you gonna go with next?

Ant

How does the swap go? Is there some sort of warranty? I'm the 3rd owner of these struts :o If not, what is the cost (if any) for doing this? I definitely rather swap this busted one for a new one, rather than buying a new one for $150

The others 'seem' fine, they travel freely and smoothly. No oil leaks, or signs of them yet.. The blown one must have been dead for a long time, because it was clean and without a single sign of oil leaking yet you could compress it effortlessly.



Springs I purchased were Maxspeeds, however, I am now having 2nd thoughts. I returned the front end to stock for the time being and the gap is so ridiculous that I don't think Maxspeeds would be enough of a drop with the 1.3" or so as they are advertised, the car looks jacked up a good 2" lol.


But i'm curious about the replacement thing from KYB...

thanks in advance..

It is kinda of hard if you are third owner.

wait so you cant use dust boots with ground controls? is that for all maximas or just your 2004?

Wow it is a good thing I did not decide to go with the ground controls after all. I had a feeling that NE winter with exposed struts would cause them to fail.

I have a 2000.

And you can't use dust boots with Ground Controls at all. If you ever seen them, the springs are about a 3rd of the size of any regular spring... They are tiny and also very narrow, there is just no space to fit the dust boot in there.

So yeah, dirt and other crap coming off your cars wheels in the wheel well and landing on the strut is obviously not good.. the other struts were all dirty and had soot and crap built up at the bottom where the piston contracts into the strut.. Really hurt me looking at this :(


I am not advocating that GCs will blow your struts, but they are more likely than any other suspension setup, and i'm riding on KYB AGX, which are excellent struts, so it must be pretty hard to blow these things yet i managed to have one be completely dead. You have to be careful with the adjustment, if you go too low, car will only handle good on a PERFECTLY smooth and straight road.. otherwise, they are floaty, have no support and if you hit a decent size bump in the road, the car will hop up in the air and the GCs will just dangle there and come out of the strut mount.. they only sit firmly if the car is sitting flat and still it's not nearly as good of a setup as any spring. It's very easy to bottom out your struts with these things too. These things are only good for show. that's all :( I would imagine any similar fake coilover setup, like Weapon Rs.. are also crap. So don't waste your money and risk hurting your car just so you can adjust the height up or down once a year..

Since you have a 2000 Maxima, I assume that you have the Cattman modified version. If that's the case, I don't think you'll even have any warranty in the first place.

good point :(

They aren't the Cattman ones but yeah, they were modified by someone else.. so basically the same thing...
oh well.

Excellent information. I am really glad now that I did not bother with them.