Bilstein 5160 leaks two times now

[Lazywildcat01]

I'm in a 3rd gen, but would like to put in my two cents. I had all four of my OME shocks blown ridiculously quickly. After a short year of moderate fire roads, my front nitrochargers were absolute shit and my front end would bounce for a solid 5-10 seconds on its own in park. A half year later, my rear nitrochargers were blown. So I swapped with 5100s in the front and 5160s in the rear. Two years later, after the same kind of "wheeling", my 5100s are seeping and squeaky constantly. My 5160s seemed fine for awhile but I do believe they're blown-- though I'll take partial blame for these since I think I have overextended them several times. Anyway, I have been very unimpressed by both Old Man Emu and Bilstein shocks. Yes, I'm familiar with Bilstein's reputation and yes I know they claim to offer a warranty. I'm in college and my 4Runner is my only car, I'm not willing to ship shocks around waiting on warranty parts for weeks on end. My rig has never been to any real Moab trails, and I've been in some rocky sections a handful of times here in Montana. I've been waiting for my 2.5" ADS coilovers for about three months now. At least if those blow I can rebuild them. Not sure what to do about rear shocks, I'll probably just bite the bullet on some quality rebuildable ones once I can afford it.

That sucks to hear that. More I dive into the bilstein warranty process and reading on all these failures, the more unimpressed I am. I could afford the $190 replacement 5160, but it sucks just waiting to hear back. Its been 32 days since I've shipped them out. ADS are nice but they are pricey for sure, located in my home state too!

 

[Zoom-a-Loom]

5100's are the safe bet. I am glad I went with them.

 

[Cymon]

The Bilstein 5160's have definitely seen some challenges since being released.

From customer feedback and event observations, we think the 5160's are better
suited for 0-1.5" max lift.

So, keep at stock height or at most with a 1" spacer or coil in the rear.

Anything over 1.5" of lift does seem to have a higher fail rate with off-road use.

ICON 2.0 (56505) matches well with 6112's for coils with 1-3" of lift.

OME 2.0 (60080) is a great option for coils with 2.5-3" of lift.

_

This is the best info I've seen and a little bit of confirmation of what I have been thinking since they were released (around the time the TRD Pro Model was created). I bet that the majority of the failures were on vehicles over 1.5" of lift (actual lift height not listed lift height) in the rear overextending the shock.

 

[honda250xtitan]

Good to know. I havent thought about icons, but will running icons in the rear which are linear i believe have issues with the 6112s that are digressive?

Also according to your info, I am at 1.5" in the rear with the first failure then added a 10mm trim spacer on the second failure, so I should be good mostly. Not sure if the 10mm makes a huge difference in the performance/failure rate of the 5160s.

you won't notice the valving difference. icon and bilstein are digressive. everyone else is progressive.

 

[DSRunner]

I am interested in getting a pair of the 5160s and in my research, came across this video showing the updated 5160s. It looks like Bilstein is trying to address the 5160s reliability issues. Has anyone had a chance to check this out?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW_LTYvb1rE&feature=youtu.be