Shocks for autoride system (passive or electronic?)

[jbdkisner]

I have a 2003 Tahoe with the auto ride feature, which means the shocks are $$$ and I need to replace them as they are leaking now.

I was going to go with Arnott and get the following:
http://www.arnottindustries.com/part_CHEVROLET_Air_Suspension_Parts_yid11_pid92.html

Front: SK-2126
Rear: AS-2411
Compressor: P-2204

I emailed them and ask about the AS-2127 and he said they are passive, but will work in the autoride system.

I can get a pair of passive ones, new, for $369 or a pair of the electronic ones, manufactured, for $379.. basically the same price.

This response was:

They both have good and bad. I would not recommend one over the other.

AS-2411 rebuilt, but electronically dampen
AS-2127 new, but passive


Should I go with the passive ones or the electronic ones? Does it make a difference?

Thanks
Jacob

 

[DenaliAK]

I've got the 2127's and the compressor from Arnott in my Denali. Ride is good, auto-leveling still works, and although I had a pretty serious issue when I first got them (the compressors were malfunctioning and over-inflating the shocks, causing stress failures), they replaced everything with new parts, over-night air shipped to Alaska, and paid for the shop fees....that's customer service I will continue to recommend.

The compressor issue has been fixed with a whole new compressor. I believe they were selling refurbed OEM compressors before, but now use their own design. Ride is a little more stiff and responsive than the OEM shocks and I have Bilstein shocks with a lifetime warranty now.

 

[Jay]

The autoride system uses two distinct processes 1) electronic valving in all four shocks (you see the electrical connector on them), and 2) the rear shocks have air support (consisting of deflection sensors on the rear suspension, a pump, and a control module).

The passive shocks are just that, they work without external commands. The dampening is uniform at all times based on the existing geometry inside the shock, unlike the active (OEM) shocks which get an electronic signal that changes the dampening relative to a voltage input from the computer based on many other inputs. The passive shocks come with a resistor that you plug the factory harness into to fool the computer so it will not set error codes. The computer gets a feedback from the resistor that tells it a shock is there and will not send error codes. The PCM will continue to send signals to the aftermarket (passive) shock, even though they are irrelevant.

The rear shocks have the same type of electronic dampening, but have provisions for the load leveling system. The passive versions of these have the same computer-fooling tactic as the fronts, but still have the load leveling feature. The reason people find they have burned up pumps and/or blown RTD fuses is that with the rear shocks leaking air, the pump will just run and run and run itself to death. The fuse normally does not blow until the pump has overheated, locked up, and overloaded the circuit. Pity. A 20-25amp fuse might would allow the pump to survive before seizing in case the shocks start leaking. Never tried it myself though.

Now that you know what you're dealing with, the passive shocks work pretty well and are a LOT cheaper. The drawback is that you negate half the usefulness of autoride... if the vehicle pitches or yaws, or the road surface becomes very irregular, the computer senses it but will not be able to change the dampening at all four corners to help keep the vehicle stable or smooth.

Autoride is a great system, just d@mn expensive to fix when something goes wrong. It's not a huge difference compared to the regular suspensions, but having driven both for a number of years I can tell the difference it makes and find it nice. To some, though, it's not worth the thousands of dollars every 80-100k miles to keep it running in it's original form.