Mojave rear shocks are bad at 18,000 miles

[Maximus Gladius]

I’d be on the phone calling your parts departments to see who’s stocking the Mojave shocks. Each dealership has their own supply. If your waiting from your dealership, the next one over or across town may have them

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[Cooper_D]

[QUOTE="Maximus Gladius,
“I’d be on the phone calling your parts departments to see who’s stocking the Mojave shocks. Each dealership has their own supply. If your waiting from your dealership, the next one over or across town may have them”



All great suggestion! I appreciate the help!

I was spoiled… bought my first new vehicle in 1978 and bought vehicles from the same dealer ever since (even worked for them in the early 90’s), knew the techs & parts guy.

Fast forward to a few years ago and the owner died leaving his son to run….more like run down… the place. Good people were let go or chased away.

If my truck had a problem, I was taken care of, need a part my friend in parts found it asap, but no more.

I decided to change to another dealer.

The new dealership has a great service advisor and I know a technician & a parts guy there so for now things are looking up.

Looks like a trip to the dealership Monday to give the parts department a little nudge on checking stock at other dealership.

 

[Puch]

So my 2023 with 18k miles starts making noise and the dealer diagnosed the rear shocks are bad.

They told me that they are working just making noise.

Service manager said they got a memo stating chrysler is no longer buying products from Fox

The dealer ordered new shocks 3 weeks ago, but they are still on back order.

At this point I am open for suggestion…

Sorry to hear about your shocks. I really don’t have any suggestions except don’t assume they checked all of the shocks. Make sure they check the front shocks. Mine gave me no indication that the were bad, but they definitely were. Unfortunately, I have you beat. I have a 21 Mojave with 10k miles. All 4 shocks are dead. I feel kinda stupid because i didn’t notice a problem. I purchased it used and thought the ride was way better than the sport that I owned previously. If I had taken it off road I probably would have noticed a problem, but I bought it end of Jan and it’s only been a parking lot poser.
I was installing airbags in the back and disconnected one of the shocks. That’s when I noticed that the shock didn’t try expanding to the max length like shocks normally do when there’s no weight on them. I ended up finding all of them were shot. I packed them up the other day and sent them off to be rebuilt.
I looked around for replacements, but I can’t cough up that kind of cash right now. I’ll probably end up going with the falcons at some point.
Anyway, keep us posted.

Update: I sent my shocks to Fox this past Thursday. This morning (Thursday) I had this in my email. Looks like it might be 150 labor and 25 parts for each shock. I’m hoping the ride improves $700 worth. ?

 

[Cooper_D]

You win 10k is worse than my 18k it makes me wonder about overall reliability of the Fox brand.

I did ask if they were going to switch from the Fox shocks to another brand, if they would switch the front shocks too.

He would not make any promises, but didn’t say no.

 

[Maximus Gladius]

Looks like a trip to the dealership Monday to give the parts department a little nudge on checking stock at other dealership.

I’m not sure if your parts department is linked to all the dealerships or not. I’ve experienced two different situations where I either had to wait or a part was found at another dealership. They were even able to see a part in a different province.

Awhile back when my transmission was approved for replacement, I was told I’d have to wait because there was non listed the Service Advisor could see and it was at the start of the strike.

The next day, I thought I’d just randomly call another dealership parts department out of fluke and they had the transmission I needed. I hooked up my dealership with them and I had my tranny. Hope you find what your part.

 

[kevman65]

Before you go blaming Fox, realize the shocks are built to MOPAR specs and as such are not available from Fox and only available from MOPAR.

Auto manufacturers put everything out for bid. Lowest bid matching their specs win.

 

[1550jrit]

I’m currently at 34k on my factory Mojave shocks and they’ve been flawless. I guess my shocks got built on a Monday, kinda like the old adage an out buying a Land Rover. You either got a good one built on a Monday, or a bad one built on a Friday when the employees don’t give a s**t. Either way, I expect the factory shocks to give out at some point and I’d like to jump over to a full Metal Cloak setup. I love their stuff, been slowly adding their stuff to my truck for two years. The Falcon shock are solid but I’d a like a setup with the MC Rocksport shocks.

 

[Zachanadandy]

With the internal bypass, I don't believe the shock is supposed to fully extend on its own. If that's your only indication your shocks are "bad", they probably aren't. If it still "rides better than your sport" the shocks are clearly still working. If they were blown you'd be into the bump stops on every bump with as soft as our springs are. If you think your shocks are blown, pull one and go for a drive. I'm willing to bet you realize real quick just how great they were still working.

 

[BuyHold]

Is @Accutune able to build shocks that fit the Mojave's bolt size? While I have never purchased from them, they seem to have a dedicated following. Obviously if factory replacements under warranty are an option for OP that would be free and custom aftermarket tunable rebuildable shocks would be much more $$.

 

[Cooper_D]

Before you go blaming Fox, realize the shocks are built to MOPAR specs and as such are not available from Fox and only available from MOPAR.

Auto manufacturers put everything out for bid. Lowest bid matching their specs win.

I completely understand the build to our specifications & putting it out to the lowest bidder way of doing business, however Fox did put their name on the shock which does not absolve them from any and all blame.

If they felt that the specifications were off would they still have built it?

Either way we can at least say the 2 companies should share the blame.

Is the Mojave the only vehicle to ever use this shock and can therefore only be bought through a Mopar dealer with an exclusive Mopar part number?

Or did they simply take an existing shock design and adapt it to the Mojave platform?

I don’t know I’m just asking the question.

 

[Cooper_D]

I’m not sure if your parts department is linked to all the dealerships or not. I’ve experienced two different situations where I either had to wait or a part was found at another dealership. They were even able to see a part in a different province.

Awhile back when my transmission was approved for replacement, I was told I’d have to wait because there was non listed the Service Advisor could see and it was at the start of the strike.

The next day, I thought I’d just randomly call another dealership parts department out of fluke and they had the transmission I needed. I hooked up my dealership with them and I had my tranny. Hope you find what your part.

Since I am dealing with a different dealership I don’t know if they would have checked out another dealers inventory.


At my old dealer my parts guy would have told me if there were any in the country an if he had to request one from Alaska & one from Florida he would have gotten them for me.

 

[Cooper_D]

I’m currently at 34k on my factory Mojave shocks and they’ve been flawless. I guess my shocks got built on a Monday, kinda like the old adage an out buying a Land Rover. You either got a good one built on a Monday, or a bad one built on a Friday when the employees don’t give a s**t. Either way, I expect the factory shocks to give out at some point and I’d like to jump over to a full Metal Cloak setup. I love their stuff, been slowly adding their stuff to my truck for two years. The Falcon shock are solid but I’d a like a setup with the MC Rocksport shocks.

I did check with Metal Cloak to see if they had anything, thinking I could upgrade mine a few pieces at a time, but he said they didn’t have anything that would work.

I will say this about MC a man answered the phone quickly and answered my questions even letting me know about upcoming options so they are a professional & class act to deal with on the phone.

If I ever do upgrade my JT they would be the first one I would call

 

[kevman65]

I completely understand the build to our specifications & putting it out to the lowest bidder way of doing business, however Fox did put their name on the shock which does not absolve them from any and all blame.

If they felt that the specifications were off would they still have built it?

Either way we can at least say the 2 companies should share the blame.

Is the Mojave the only vehicle to ever use this shock and can therefore only be bought through a Mopar dealer with an exclusive Mopar part number?

Or did they simply take an existing shock design and adapt it to the Mojave platform?

I don’t know I’m just asking the question.

Could be the reason MOPAR and Fox aren't doing business any more.

Fox knows there's problems (warranty claims prove this) and won't build to that spec because they don't want the warranty liability.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

With the internal bypass, I don't believe the shock is supposed to fully extend on its own. If that's your only indication your shocks are "bad", they probably aren't. If it still "rides better than your sport" the shocks are clearly still working. If they were blown you'd be into the bump stops on every bump with as soft as our springs are. If you think your shocks are blown, pull one and go for a drive. I'm willing to bet you realize real quick just how great they were still working.

Can't speak to these exact shocks the architecture in them, how that works, but when a "standard shock" goes, even the high quality shock, there's bound to be a bounce.
That was a tell with my overland shocks, and one way I've diagnosed shock issues since the 70s - jounce the vehicle, if you let go on the down-stroke it should come back up beyond neutral, then settle back down to neutral, not go down and come back up. Similarly if you let go on the up - it should settle, not not "bounce". no more than one direction change up to down, or down to up.
My Overland would bounce twice after dropping the small drop from garage floor to driveway/approach (the floor is higher to prevent rain entry, commonly done on driveways that slope down toward a garage). New shocks, bounce no more (but the Eibachs are harsh riding in town and on our broken country roads - control but really harsh)
The Rubicon take-off Fox shocks I had on my 2020 were "bouncy". They felt like bad shocks really quickly, weak.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Before you go blaming Fox, realize the shocks are built to MOPAR specs and as such are not available from Fox and only available from MOPAR.

Auto manufacturers put everything out for bid. Lowest bid matching their specs win.

Here's something with some irony in all of that............
Starting about 1967, AMC switched over to Motorcraft starters for their V8 engines. Built to AMC specs for the most part, but using stock/standard armatures, moveable pole shoes, field windings and brush end plates. Nose housing was a combo of AMC and Ford specs, the drive was all AMC.
AMC started getting reports of the starter drive hanging up and not engaging into the ring gear. They got a lot of warranty claims on it and finally their engineers investigated (rather than relying on Ford - who had no real solution)
AMC determined that upon activation of the armature, a strong magnetic field was being created in a retaining ring on the armature behind the starter drive. Their solution - replace the steel retainer with a bronze ring and go to a different drive return spring to loosen the force against the drive being pushed into the ring gear.
It worked.
A few months later - Ford decided, hey, good idea, and you started seeing the modified armature with the green AMC spring in Ford starters used on Ford car and truck engines.
A case of the customer fixing a problem for the supplier and the supplier using that fix for their own vehicles.

Similar examples can be found with Sears Kenmore appliances, actually having tougher specs and higher quality than the company who made them own products.

There are times, and there are other examples, where a customer's specs are tighter than those of the company that makes those items for the customer but also makes a similar item for sale through their own brands. So is it a MOPAR spec issue, or a Fox issue? Hmmmmmmm.

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