Hi everyone, I very recently acquired a VW Golf 2014 MK7 with 80,000 km. I took it for service inspection a few days ago & noticed that the rear left suspension had leaked a while back (before I even owned the car) & had both rear suspension’s changed to Bilstein B4’s.
Now fast forward to 2 days ago, picked the car up from the garage with new shocks installed, did about 300km on fairly decent roads, a few potholes but nothing major & on arrival at my parents home I noticed that the new 2 day old Bilstein B4 rear left suspension has already leaked?
Any ideas? As part of the new shocks installation I had my wheels aligned & camber checked.
Could there be something that’s causing the new shock to fail in the exact spot the old one failed? The right rear shock is perfectly fine & I haven’t noticed any changes in driving.
The seal failed on a new shock. Sometimes it happens. Get it replaced, there must be a warranty. There is nothing in the suspension that should cause this.
When I worked for VW we had 2 people come in and wanted their just purchased Bilsteins installed on near new VWs. They were advised that correct installation was guaranteed but there was no parts warranty since they were not OEM VW parts. They agreed.
I caught one job and a co-worker got the other. Long story short. Within a month 3 of the 4 (both rears, 1 front) on the job I got failed in the same manner as yours and 2 of the 4 (1 rear, 1 front) on the other job also failed in the same way.
Both customers were irate and then not so agreeable in spite of what they had agreed to at the get-go that in the event of a parts problem labor would be charged out again.
After that, anyone who came in requesting aftermarket parts installation were told that it would not be done.
This kind of dimmed my view on Bilsteins and honestly, I was quite surprised by those multiple failures.
I talked to the shop that installed. They were quite surprised to hear it’s already leaked. I’ll be taking the car to them next week. Will update here on any progress. Most likely scenario will be they replace the failed shock with a new one for free.
The shock manufacturer will likely provide your shop a free replacement part. Not sure if they will also cover the replacement labor fee. It seems like they should, otherwise your shop will have to take the hit I guess.
