Hey long time lurker here, but I've gleaned quite a bit of wisdom on these forums and must say thanks. Time to engage and offer some of my own wisdom.
Just wanted to share my experience with doing the Magneride delete on our 2015 Yukon Denali since that seems to be a common topic on here and I know many are looking for answers.
Our Denali has 99k on it and the ride has gotten pretty rough over the last 4-6 months. A few weeks ago the front left strut started leaking fluid onto the ground and the front end was noticeably sagging. I did a lot of reading on here and other places. Our dealer wanted $1200 to replace the one strut!!! I talked to a local GM specialties shop and recommended the ARNOTT setup.
I did a lot of research, and from what I could tell, no one builds an actual magride replacement except AC delco. bunch of Chinese products on amazon claim to be magride but I'm pretty skeptical. In my research I found others had fitment issues and just some other quality bugs typical of Chinese replicas.
So I decided to do the bypass and went with the Arnotts. SK3354 for the fronts and AS3066 for the rears. By they way they are engineered and built in the US for those of you that may find that important. I ordered them from RockAuto with the 5% discount code and all in with shipping it was $1445 for all 4.
Took me about 6 hours to do them all on a Saturday but I had my 12 and 10 year-olds helping so it took a little slower. If it was just me I probably could have knocked them all out in 3-4 hours. Everything seems very high quality, and it all bolted right up. The only issue I had, was the magride electrical connectors on the rear shocks were oriented the opposite way so clipping them onto the holder was a little cumbersome.
As for stance, the front fender is at 35 3/4" and the rear is at 37 3/4" (we have pirelli all-seasons) so I ordered a front 1.5" leveling kit from suspension max to bring up the front closer to the rear.
THE RIDE: It rides much more comfortable then I remember the magrides ever riding. Around town is the biggest difference that I can tell as the whole set up feels less busy. I always felt the mag ride was trying to do too much at lower speeds around town. The impact harshness is also really improved, however my perception might be exaggerated with the front struts being in such bad shape. And the rear auto level works flawlessly so far.
I will say there is one main reason not to do the bypass. With the non magride set-up you definitely loose the sportiness and playfullness the suspension had. We ultimately chose the Denali because of how planted it felt and how well it handled on top of the sweet 6.2. But as time went on I felt we gave up a lot in comfort for that feature. The ride is more floaty and the truck leans and dives more. Not out of control, but definitely noticeable compared to the magride shocks. I felt the magride really shined when driving down decently smooth freeways and that definitely feels different when you do the bypass.
We've put about 200 miles on it on some various roads, so right now I'm pleased with the switch. We'll see how it wears and I'll give an update or 2.
Hope this helps!
