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Does Toytec's Parts Build Quality Just Stink, or is this normally how sus lifts age?

5K views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  ToyTec Lifts 
#1 · (Edited)
UPDATE: Kevin from Toytec took care of me once I laid down the timeline of what is going on with my lift. Thanks Kevin!!

I'm a little in shock at the moment. In a nutshell, I had a Toytec Boss Suspention lift installed a little over two years ago. That lift install included a full coilover setup, rear shocks, rear coils, Chaoa UCAS, and a BMC all done by a shop in Maryland, Iron Mike's, who is a sponsor of one of the local FJ Cruiser forums in the DC area. The install went great and everything including the BMC looked as though the factory put it on. I've had no problems with the suspension for two years.

In that two year time frame I have driven my FJ maybe 1500 miles, as it is my weekend truck. I have offroaded only once, and it was a tame trail by anyones standards. That brings us to to two months ago where all the trouble has begun. Bear with the bullet points below.

  1. The front shock blew and was leaking fluid all over my driveway. I contact Toytec and they tell me I'm outside the warranty period. I figure its just bad luck.
  2. I order a replacement front shock and two new front coils, 650 pound ones, to replace my 600 pound ones. At the cost of $400.
  3. I install the coils and shock myself to save some money. I'm back on the road and feeling good.
  4. A couple weeks later, I hear a clunking sound in the rear of my FJ and investigate only to find that the head of my right rear Toytec shock has sheered off. WTF!! I contact Toytec and they tell me, sorry out of warranty. So I'm out another $200 to get a new one.
  5. I install the new right rear shock.
  6. I think my troubles are over.

That brings us to this morning, where I notice that my left rear side (original Toytec shock) of the car is hanging at least an inch lower than my right rear side (new Toytec shock). So now it looks like I have another blown shock

Now my question to the forum is should this all be happening to a suspension lift with only 1500 miles of wear on it and a little over 2 years old? Or did I just get a lemon of a suspension kit? I'm starting to approach a total cost for the original lift, install, and the replacement parts to where I could have ordered an ICON setup.

Kevin took care of me!!
 
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#2 ·
I've heard that the first wave of BOSS suspensions had problems, that's why they changed to a 2.5 setup, you probably got those, sadly. Going Icon doesn't mean you are safe either, plenty of horror stories with them too.
 
#3 ·
Now my question to the forum is should this all be happening to a suspension lift with only 1500 miles of wear on it and a little over 2 years old? Or did I just get a lemon of a suspension kit? I'm starting to approach a total cost for the original lift, install, and the replacement parts to where I could have ordered an ICON setup. Very dissapointed to say the least. :flame:

I'm dreading calling them because they are going to tell me to go fly a kite and to give them my credit card number so they can charge me another $200. I have no problem with some bad luck happening on aftermarket parts, but this is ridiculous.

@ToyTec Lifts is a sponsor here, they can speak to production issues with any particular run of the Boss setup. To have as many failures in such a short time definitely seems like the kind of thing that should raise a red flag with a batch of parts. Who did you talk to at Toytec?

+1 for @Cholerabob's comment about ICON, you hear a lot of stories here about those failing and having to be sent back as well. You hear a lot less about Fox/King or the OME BP-51's (which haven't been around but for about a year).

My advice: get with Toytec about your purchase date and failures, and escalate up to Kevin or Doug on the resolution. If you can get some kind of exchange, you might try the Toytec Ultimate's instead. They use a different shock from (if memory serves) a much larger company known for quality shocks. A very good friend of mine here in Colorado offroads harder than pretty much anybody else I know, and she's been running the Ultimate lift for 4+ years.
 
#4 ·
Thanks for the advice, I'd rather not name whom I've been speaking to at Toytec. I don't want to infer that I've been treated bad by anyone. The person I've talked to has been very responsive and has quickly sent out replacement parts. Its just the level of failure I'm experiencing now is epic.

By any chance would you have Kevin or Dougs email?
 
#6 ·
Searching through the forum, you'll see you're definitely not the first to have a bad experience with the BOSS lift. Hopefully you have a better experience dealing with their customer service than those before you. Be sure to let us know how it goes.
 
#8 ·
Sounds like you've had bad luck but I wouldn't necessarily point the finger at Toytec as having a poor product. (Though of course I'm not saying it isn't beyond possibility). In my experience the fact that your truck has covered so few miles may well actually be a contributing factor. I know sounds stupid, you would think a truck doing 10x the mileage should have more issues but my experience is that that is not the case.

I had a Land Cruiser for 15years, no issues with anything for 250,000 miles (but did do a lot of preventative maintenance and replacement of parts -always in pairs) until I stopped using it daily then things started to fail continually. Standing around is the worse thing...and I hate to say that because my FJ stands most of the time as I can't afford to run it daily.

The very fact that not just one component has failed but several could point to this just as easily as saying that the product is not up to scratch.

My experience of looking at reviews of products is that I can find a whole load of people who have had issues and therefore I can scare myself that I bought the wrong thing...but equally I can find a load of people who are quite happy. That goes for anything really, suspension to new cars, to washing machines.... the black and the white shout out but the grey doesn't feature, by that I mean people with experiences at each end of the spectrum tell us about it but they are probably outnumbered by those who are just perfectly happy but have no need to tell us.

I'd suggest you work with any company with which you see an issue rather than against them, you're more likely to find a positive solution.
 
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#10 ·
Anytime a manufacturer sells a lot of product, like ToyTec or Icon, the failure count will go up even though the failure rate may be the same as manufacturers that sell fewer units.

This does not make the builds equal, unique weakness and common fail points do occur. There are many photos of ToyTecs with sheared/folded struts. Icons with broken top hats, Icon claims to have beefed it up.

Kings sell fewer units to FJ users, and still have issues like cross threaded collars, leaking resi's.


Bottom line is your obviously in need of a more substantial build, Kings-Icon-Fox provide it and you could still break them, but at a lower rate. Then you could get some bypasses and break them.
 
#11 ·
Hi guys,

We do appreciate our customers and try to take care of them within our means. We are constantly trying to improve and expand our lineup. When issues arise, we do address them with our suppliers and head back to the drawing board. I would like to mention that I appreciate this being brought to our attention and have resolved this issue.

Thanks for your support and have a great weekend.
 
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