Toytec.. and My Pretty Much Catastrophic Shock Failure x2
 

I have a Toytec lift kit I purchased back in March 2017 and installed soon thereafter. Within a few weeks of one another, one front shock failed and then a rear shock failed. Let me start off by saying Toytec Lifts doesn’t believe the front shock failure is their fault. I don’t have any reason to doubt what they say about that. The rear shock, however, is a different situation. In both cases, I'm out of warranty so it's not like they owe me a legal obligation.

The Toytec kit has just over 20,000 miles on it in over two years. I don’t drive the 4Runner often, so a lot of those miles are highway miles (to get to camp sites or trails) and a lot of off-road miles. The first post of my build thread has a pretty good summary of the trips I’ve taken in the 4Runner.

Right before Christmas, I wanted to take a trip out to the desert with a few friends, in part as a final systems check before heading for a 10 day trip through Baja California. Running along a seemingly harmless dirt trail, the driver’s front corner suddenly pops and drops. The trail had no major obstacles, just some random rocks. I may have rolled over one of those rocks but it would not have been more than a few inches tall.

This was what I found when I got out of the truck.
https://i.imgur.com/Ql53oJl.jpg?1

Well, a few hours and several hundred dollars later a local mobile auto repair guy shows up with a new front shock assembly and installs it for me. Luckily I was able to find someone who was able to hit up an Autozone before they closed that afternoon; unluckily for me it cost me a pretty penny.

I talked with Toytec about this failure and they said it looks like I set the collars on the shock body too high, which then caused it to wear prematurely. Then that caused the shock to break as it did. After reviewing the installation instructions, I’m not entirely certain I installed things incorrectly, but am also not entirely certain the installation didn’t set things up too high. So I’ll chalk this up as a learning experience. Read the instructions, friends, even if you think you know what you are doing. I bought a new shock as a replacement from Toytec and made sure that everything was installed in accordance with the instructions.

While in Baja in late January 2019, the rear shock busted. We were doing the Baja XL Rally. At a gas station, while inspecting the truck for damage (due to previous issue with the front shock and CV boots tearing up, we tried being vigilant for any issues… plus we’re in Mexico so we want to be careful) we found that the inside of the rear driver-side tire appeared to be coming apart. Upon closer inspection I noticed a lot of what looked like curb rash on the inside rim of the wheel. My first thought was that the drum brake was somehow causing this damage, but then I noticed a shiny metal rod sticking out of the shock boot. This made me think we somehow ran over something that then rammed itself into the shock body but a second set of eyes made me aware of the obvious – the shock rod broke off and was protruding from the shock boot. Then whenever we accelerated, the rear end squatted down and the end of the rod grinded the tire and rim. We were luck in that the shock rod did not pierce the tire (and potentially cause a flip-over).
https://i.imgur.com/o2kE6SQ.jpg?2

We pulled into an Autozone and bought two OEM-spec replacement shocks and did the replacement there in the parking lot.
https://i.imgur.com/ugzLnk8.jpg?1

After getting back home a few days later, I emailed Toytec, who admitted it is a frustrating situation but that’s about all they did. They asked why I was using Land Cruiser rear coils, which may have caused the shocks to become compromised. I told them that the entire set up, including the Land Cruiser coils, were recommended to me by the Toytec sales representative I was dealing with when I initially bought the kit (I was originally told someone at Toytec runs this exact set up which is why it was recommended to me). After that it was pretty much radio silence. Now I’m out the money I paid for two new rear shocks that are only temporary fixes, had to take it easy on the back end of my Baja trip since I was running Autozone shocks, and still have to figure out what to do about my entire suspension set up.

So what is the lesson I learned? For critical parts like the suspension, I think the lesson is to only buy what has been proven. @ToyTec Lifts is a Colorado based company that has been around for enough years that their products must be pretty good, otherwise they would’ve been run out of business. But perhaps their stuff isn’t rated for the rigors of Baja? Or maybe the original sales rep didn’t know what he was talking about and led me down the wrong path? In any case, what I am considering is to only go with products that have been proven in Baja or in the Australian Outback. Other 4Runners in the Baja XL rally ran Solo Motorsports (with King shocks), Old Man Emu, and Sonoran Steel without issue. I don’t know much about the “proven-ness” of Sonoran Steel (though I use their diff drop kit) but due to my experience with Toytec, I’m unlikely to go with their kit (mostly due to my own ignorance, I am not saying anything about Sonoran Steel’s quality or lack thereof). King shocks and Old Man Emu, to me, are the proven quantities here. I’m sure there are others. But that’s the stuff I’ll be looking at from now on.

My experiences probably don't reflect most of Toytec customer's experiences. But it's just food (and another few thou's of dollars) for thought.

UPDATE 1
Toytec has responded to my last email (of 7 days ago) within a day of posting this thread. Coincidence? I will let you decide. But the sales rep says they still want me to be a satisfied customer and I'm guessing communication will continue, which is nice.

I should also say at this point that I've always been happy with Toytec's customer service and their quick responses, from initial purchase when I had a billion questions for them, through the front shock failure and up until now, with the exception of the recent radio silence.

UPDATE 2
After the initial email in Update 1, and a response by me on the same day (I think), I've heard nothing back. At first, I figured they might be busy with KOH. But it's been a while now.

wow! Thanks for sharing. Those are some pretty rough looking photos!

This kit is super popular and failures are extremely rare when used and installed as designed. There is A LOT more to this story.

No matter what...4runners are not made for Baja...and all these lift kits simply do not have the R&D dollars to do exhaustive durability testings.

It may look cool but durability from aftermarket stuff is usually lacking.

Just look at Ford and their Raptor. Millions of dollars of R&D testings and equipment...and early on, there were frame failures.

And now you think some 3rd party small outfit (Toytec may be big for its kind) will provide you off-road capability and durability in a Baja race?

and I said:

I also said:

so i guess we agree. thanks for the helpful input.

LOL man you must be cray if you think I run my 4R like a Raptor through Baja.

Like I said in the original post, other 4R's running other set-ups had no failures. On top of that, they ran harder than I did.

Also, I did not run in the "race" category, so I was never trying to win or go as fast as possible. So no, I don't think some third party small outfit will provide me with Baja1000 level products Of course not.

But yea, I agree with you on the other stuff. You just have a wildly missed preconceived notion of what I do in Baja.

Great point. Don't these companies just piece together Bilstein/Eibach parts to get a desired ride height? I do not think they do any baja testing. Frankly I think those sales reps have no clue what they are telling you. Most of these lift kits are just random parts pieced together without testing. Do they even sell LC coils? I wonder if that sales rep was aware of how that plays with their warranty.

Not a spokesperson for any company but I did always think SS had the edge in testing their products. His website back in the day was of plethora of info on 3rd gen suspension setups that were being tested when these trucks were new.

After reading about bilstien failures. I chose OME shocks and springs which just arrived today. I had bilstiens on my old 4R, and on the rear of my new 4R. They ran great and had no issues, but I figured I'd step it up this time.

^Beating a dead horse here, but How many Bilstein failures did you read about, like 5? There's like 648362829 people on this forum running 5100s or 6112, or the thousands of TRD Pros that have Bilsteins stock.

Enough to where I would go with slightly better shock this time. I run bilstien coilovers on my long travel buggy, 5100's on my Dodge diesel tow rig, my old 4R, and on the rears of my new one without issues. Just figured I wanted a slightly beefier shock with triple valving.

Go with Dobinsons.

If a handful of Bilstein failures scare you, generally due to abuse and incorrect use, I hope you aren't running SPC uppers? Massive failures yet people still seem to love them and ignore history, it's amazing.

Don't take what i wrote the wrong way...i am NOT blaming you. I am just saying that these 3rd parties simply don't have the resources to do any durability testings. I brought up the Ford Raptor as an example...even with millions of dollars in R&D, there are still failures. These 3rd parties just throw some stuff together and drive around a few times and call it a day. Maybe the individual parts are good but it may not work well together over the long haul. What looks good one paper may not work well in real-world.

Let's take another example. 2020 Tacoma TRD PRO has lighter wheels...5 lbs lighter rims. Toyota and FOX had to re-calibrate the suspension to take into account the lighter rims. I am sure that is a few hundred thousand dollars or more investment to retune the suspension.......just because the rim the 5 lbs lighter.

Or take Ford Raptor again. Ford not only threw on FOX suspension and call it a day. They actually made the control arms stronger and they reinforced the frame at critical points, which then makes the Raptor frame much stronger than F150's.

Why did Toyota take so long to bring out FOX suspension? They probably took a few years in development and testing to make sure that the equipment won't fail even if customers do some stupid things.

For me personally, i don't screw around with critical components of suspension or powertrain. There is simply not enough durability testings from these relatively small companies.

Typically the only way you break shocks like that is to bottom out the shock or brick the spring. Meaning your shock assembly with the spacer on it is too long for your bump stops. Do you have any other pictures of the broken front coilover? Specifically the mounting of the top of the shock and a picture of the end of the shaft of the shock that is broken? It's always possible that the piston worked it's way off the shaft. Uncommon - but possible.

Here is close-up picture of the broken front coilover. I did not have pics of the mounting at the top of the shock, but that was not any different than what you get off-the-shelf from Toytec. I think this picture shows exactly what you say is uncommon.. but let me know what you think?

https://i.imgur.com/dmXoNbI.jpg?1

edit: this pic shows how, in my original post, the spring sat in a curved "C" position.