2500 Yukon with Autoride - How do I know if shocks are worn?

[Dan Acosta]

I have switched from a Tahoe to 2500 Yukon. Old Tahoe had autoride with air and I could tell when they went bad, but how do I know if they are worn out on this truck? It has autoride and not the air lift (leaf springs). It rides fairly rough/stiff, but not bouncy.

 

[iamdub]

A 2500 is going to ride firmer due to the heavier-duty springs (more load capacity) and since they're leaves versus coils.

All I can say about the Autoride shocks is that they seem to ride firmer as they wear instead of softer like standard shocks. My guess is that, on a worn shock, the metallic particles in the shock's oil are affected differently (more or less magnetic?) so the oil remains more viscous despite the system's electronic input.

Standard shocks are easy to test. But, short of replacing Autoride shocks and comparing, I don't know how you would tell if they are worn or not. With our body style/type of shocks, it seems that at a certain mileage range (80-120K miles +/-), they are pretty much guaranteed to be spent and replacing them always yields an improvement.

 

[Dan Acosta]

I have 165k on this Yukon. I was just not sure if it was me switching to the stiffer suspension from my Tahoe which drove like a dream. I wonder if a Tech2 can determine if they are good. I have a set of Billsteins 4600s that I never installed on the Tahoe sitting in my garage.

 

[MCAT069]

If you find out how to test them, please let me know. My 04 2500 4x4 has autoride and I recently replaced all 4 which was not cheap. FYI, I found that Walmart actually had the cheapest delivered price for both the front ( AC Delco 580-465) and rear (AC Delco 580-460).