Pretty disappointed in how rusted my Toytec Ultimate Suspension is

[Bumbo]

Speaking of Ceramic coatings... Permanent protection systems such as: Paint or Metallic coatings... would be nice to see a factory option.

Alternately, even if you went though some type of melonite / salt bath nitriding melonite qpq process on your standard product for all fittings, adapters, body, threads... you would be onto something.

For a high end shock, one you intend on keeping, servicing, and rebuilding... it would be nice to see this as a factory option, even if there was a cost adder in price.

The surface hardening of the coil over threads alone would extend the life of the product along with provide corrosion protection.

The economics of this happening at the manufacturing level makes a lot more sense than individuals seeking their own and with the volume it doesn't even add that much to the cost.

My street car / racing vendors already do this... its not new to the industry.
http://www.tein.co.jp/e/special/surface/index.html

 

[wootalien]

UCA look bad too

 

[baldrik78]

You are correct - they do. That being said, there’s still reasons a lot of major industrial and oil & gas companies do not allow Chinese steels. They have found their MTR’s and materials to not always be accurate. As I mentioned, I work Quality on these projects for these companies, I deal with the stuff every single day.

Unfortunately the test is only as good as the testing entity. The premise that chinese steel has an MTR that matches the product you receive and that the mill is actually doing the testing and providing accurate results is what I would take issue with. It's pretty well known that chinese manufacturers across many industries cheat and/or lie on testing results. For example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0166H2WF...locphy=9060400&hvtargid=pla-385724589595&th=1 For smaller operations it's a lot more cost effective to simply say no Chineseium and have a reliable supplier and only buy steel from known good sources for the steel parts that matter.

/shrug

I've dealt with a lot of foreign steel (Chinese, Turkish, Greek, etc) and had to get it retested for certain applications and, while anecdotal, my experience has been that it meets what the MTRs say in 99.9% of cases.

But, by all means, please buy domestic. I work for Nucor and we appreciate your business :usa2:

 

[nb rob]

the rusting / preventative maintenance is more important in shocks with threaded steel bodies, and fittings for external reservoirs. These are both places where the coating will fail first. Uncoated steel will rust. Quickly. I'm not sure if the plating fails at the threads because of difficult application, or if they are more likely to hold on to salt, if even at a microscopic level. But I have noticed that the rusting on the threads usually starts facing out.

Smooth body shocks with circlips and no external fittings are less likely to rust. Keep them clean, even wax the body if you have the wheels off. No problems.

Threaded steel body and thin-plated aeroquip hose fittings - these need a bit more protection. Cover up the threads in the winter (if you drive on salted roads) and coat those fittings. The last set of shocks I bough, I masked and sprayed the fittings with clear enamel. I wish I had done this a long time ago. Oil works well though.
And for prospective buyers: If you don't want to do any maintenance,
maybe rebuildable shocks are not for you.

I learned a hard lesson years ago. There's a lot of reading on tacomaworld alone about corrosion on high end coilovers. Even if you google search for "rusty coilovers" you will see a flood of coilovers for cars with corroded threads. If you type "rusty fox" or "rusty king", you will see much more familiar 4x4 applications.

There have been many people caught completely off guard about corrosion, and the threads are lengthy. As it turns out, It happens, it's preventable, most people didn't think it was going to happen to them--or definitely not that quickly. And the manufacturers; king, fox, radflo, donahoe, sway a way--they won't warranty it, because it doesn't affect performance. Its awful when it happens to you, but life's a beeatch sometimes.

interestingly enough, the new TRD pro fox shocks will have aluminium bodies and aluminium reservoirs. sweet!

 

[SteveNJ]

There’s a thread somewhere on here that shows all the different options folks use to protect their trucks. Basically he coated some metal samples with different products, left one untreated and hit them all with salt water once a day.

What’s amazing is how quickly (overnight) the rust formed on the untreated metal. If it can happen overnight in a controlled environment, it can happen in 9 months even if you spray it off occasionally.

 

[calcrc]

Well for customer service Toytec you get ZERO points. You could at least say hey, can we assist you or help you with maintenance or for god's sake do you want a discount on your next order or something.

Nothing, just washing yourself out of this. There is premature rust, look at the damn bolts they look like they were on a 1978 truck that has been to rain and snow everyday for the past 30 years !

Even with or without maintenance $hit looks bad. I am not saying it's your fault or OP's but you could at least try to meet him in the middle or something, don't you think ?

Anyways your website is out from my PC. for now ...........

 

[yardsale]

It’s actually kind of nice to see a company stand up for itself instead of caving into someone who did not take care of his high end suspension. That rust and corrosion, which is on more than just the Toytec product, did not happen overnight.

 

[Trixx]

You didn't maintain your parts. They got rusty. Are you contacting Total Chaos about the uni-ball?
You live approximately 130 miles or so from the ocean, do you not?

Yeah - 130 miles is a long ways lol. When I had my F250 I lived in Corpus Christi TX and spent a winter in PA. I lived and worked 10-15 miles from the coast. Zero issues like this.


So - with all this talk about maintaining, I decided to crawl under the 4Runner for an inspection, you know, expecting to see endless rust because I “didn’t maintain it.”

Bilsteins look 1000x better. Little bit of surface rust but nothing remotely close, a lot is dirt and needing to be wiped down. Lots of oem nuts and bolts look perfect, as do the skid plates. Rust on exhaust which is pretty standard. Overall, the underside and bilsteins basically look exactly like I’d expect. Toytecs are the only thing I found that look like shit.

Uniballs have some very very light surface rust in a few spots but doesn’t really concern me at all. Washers at the thru bolt are a bit rusted. The fact that Toytec said the uniballs were “pitting” is hilarious though. Sounds like the people at work that can’t fabricate worth a shit. Instead of acknowledging that they messed up, they instead start pointing out others issues, as if it somehow makes their shotty workmanship ok.

 

[Trixx]

If anyone thinks my underside looks like it was in “excessive” conditions, please let me know...

 

[shrub1]

Well for customer service Toytec you get ZERO points. You could at least say hey, can we assist you or help you with maintenance or for god's sake do you want a discount on your next order or something.

Nothing, just washing yourself out of this. There is premature rust, look at the damn bolts they look like they were on a 1978 truck that has been to rain and snow everyday for the past 30 years !

Even with or without maintenance $hit looks bad. I am not saying it's your fault or OP's but you could at least try to meet him in the middle or something, don't you think ?

Anyways your website is out from my PC. for now ...........

Very slippery slope for a company to do that as it opens them up to do it for all people that complain and it could get very expensive trying to just be nice and "help" someone out. Lawyers could have a field day. Sadly its the world we live in.

 

[Trixx]

Very slippery slope for a company to do that as it opens them up to do it for all people that complain and it could get very expensive trying to just be nice and "help" someone out. Lawyers could have a field day. Sadly its the world we live in.

Meh - that’s why I mentioned to them if they would make it right I’d consider it a one-off issue and keep it to myself, not to be mentioned again. No interest in that, though. I wasn’t looking for like free shocks or a total refund. Just maybe a discount on replacements or a partial refund.

Fine by me - however I’m going to make sure others are aware. Had I of seen this, I never would have purchased these. At the price they were, could have easily gone kings.

 

[chrismind]

So basically, you politely emailed them and threatened to go to public forums if they didn't fix your percieved rust issue? I'm amazed you didn't get the service you expected. Really surprising. Maybe leave out the threats next time, you'll probably get a lot farther. TBH, you sound like a whiny child.

 

[shrub1]

Meh - that’s why I mentioned to them if they would make it right I’d consider it a one-off issue and keep it to myself, not to be mentioned again. No interest in that, though. I wasn’t looking for like free shocks or a total refund. Just maybe a discount on replacements or a partial refund.

Fine by me - however I’m going to make sure others are aware. Had I of seen this, I never would have purchased these. At the price they were, could have easily gone kings.

Do what you gotta man.

 

[Jetboy]

/shrug

I've dealt with a lot of foreign steel (Chinese, Turkish, Greek, etc) and had to get it retested for certain applications and, while anecdotal, my experience has been that it meets what the MTRs say in 99.9% of cases.

But, by all means, please buy domestic. I work for Nucor and we appreciate your business :usa2:

We don't normally buy American steel that needs to be machined or CNC torch cut either... too many inclusions and air bubbles. Anything over 1/2" plate is Japanese only in most cases unless it's not available. The cost bump is small compared to the reject rate. Doesn't mean it's all bad. Just that it's bad enough often enough to not be worth the risk.

 

[brtnstrns]

So basically, you politely emailed them and threatened to go to public forums if they didn't fix your percieved rust issue? I'm amazed you didn't get the service you expected. Really surprising. Maybe leave out the threats next time, you'll probably get a lot farther. TBH, you sound like a whiny child.

I don't see where he said he threatened them in the email? Think he's saying he told them if they fixed it he would assume it was just a fluke. I don't think he's saying he told them "fix this or I'll go public" - think that's a separate thought in the same sentence. I could be wrong though.

 

[comtn4x4]

Customer service is a slippery slope. I've been in a highly publicly criticized field for 30 years (Fine dining Chef). The customer isn't always right. However, you do need to genuinely listen and empathize with your customer. Win them back before they get out the door we say, or else they go to the office the next day and well.... In my field great food and bad service is a bad meal. Good food and good service is a great meal. Ultimately most dissatisfied customers vote with their wallet.

 

[4Running303]

You do know that Toytec is not a manufacturer, right? They distribute under the brand name, but their coilovers, coils, arms, hard parts, etc. are made by Radflo, Eibach, Rokmen...
Thats why they sell several other brands on their website...they're more of a dealer of parts. So its not really their workmanship.

Just an FYI...might be why they don't care to help much.
Bummer either way man...looks rusty as sh*t!

Yeah - 130 miles is a long ways lol. When I had my F250 I lived in Corpus Christi TX and spent a winter in PA. I lived and worked 10-15 miles from the coast. Zero issues like this.


So - with all this talk about maintaining, I decided to crawl under the 4Runner for an inspection, you know, expecting to see endless rust because I “didn’t maintain it.”

Bilsteins look 1000x better. Little bit of surface rust but nothing remotely close, a lot is dirt and needing to be wiped down. Lots of oem nuts and bolts look perfect, as do the skid plates. Rust on exhaust which is pretty standard. Overall, the underside and bilsteins basically look exactly like I’d expect. Toytecs are the only thing I found that look like shit.

Uniballs have some very very light surface rust in a few spots but doesn’t really concern me at all. Washers at the thru bolt are a bit rusted. The fact that Toytec said the uniballs were “pitting” is hilarious though. Sounds like the people at work that can’t fabricate worth a shit. Instead of acknowledging that they messed up, they instead start pointing out others issues, as if it somehow makes their shotty workmanship ok.

 

[Jhalko]

Im not sure why the nuts on top of the coilovers would be so rusted, and the washers for the UCA’s look to have similar rust as well. OP, you mention rinsing with just water, here in CO if we get mag chloride on stuff we can’t just use water as it never completely removes the “salt”, you might have been in better shape using a mild chemical to remove the salt.

I have had my Toytec CO’s for now my 4th CO winter and they look just fine, but then I don’t have the remote resi’s, CO is also not like the northeast where I have seen bad corrosion on every brand, including Toytec.

Toytec, your response in the thread is also disappointing, take the time to think through what you post/say regardless of what you may believe the problem to be.

 

[Trixx]

I don't see where he said he threatened them in the email? Think he's saying he told them if they fixed it he would assume it was just a fluke. I don't think he's saying he told them "fix this or I'll go public" - think that's a separate thought in the same sentence. I could be wrong though.

Meh- somewhere in the middle lol. I was well aware, as others have mentioned here, that Toytec might be concerned about having to replace suspension for every single person with some rust. Rightfully so. That’s why I made it clear if they reimbursed me I would keep the entire issue to myself. I did, however, also mention that I understand they aren’t liable as they don’t warranty corrosion, and there’s nothing I can do aside from making sure other 4Runner owners are aware of what Toytec considers “normal corrosion” in 9-10 months time. If they weren’t going to stand behind their product (which they didn’t) I want to make sure others know what is considered standard wear for Toytec suspension. I researched endlessly when purchasing suspension, had I of seen this thread or pictures I would have A. Not bought them, or B. Understood that the after market suspension on these take far more maintenance than oem suspension or brands like Bilstein or King. Or even extra maintenance altogether.

You do know that Toytec is not a manufacturer, right? They distribute under the brand name, but their coilovers, coils, arms, hard parts, etc. are made by Radflo, Eibach, Rokmen...
Thats why they sell several other brands on their website...they're more of a dealer of parts. So its not really their workmanship.

Just an FYI...might be why they don't care to help much.
Bummer either way man...looks rusty as sh*t!

Yeah - I’m aware they don’t manufacture, however they stamp their name on them and sell them. They are ultimately responsible for the quality of their product.

On a recent project a subcontractor used a bunch of seamed pipe instead of seamless, as was specified. Do you think the plant owners were like “oh, it was your vendor that used shitty materials, don’t worry about it?” No... we had to cut all the pipe out on site and replace it. We are the ones selling it with our name on it, and we are ultimately responsible.

Whoever did manufacture these shocks, I hope Toytec is sending them these pictures (and maybe even this thread) and asking them wtf?

 

[Throwback]

It is strange to me looking at your original photos how rusty the ToyTec COs are as well as the TC UCA joints and washers. The rest of your truck looks pretty normal.

While I agree that the ToyTec COs look excessively rusty, maybe this thread will help people remember that race shocks are not something that you just install and forget about like normal lift shocks (OME, Bilstein, Rancho, etc.).

#oldschoolwheeling #oldmanemu #22re #steelies #groundtentsandcolemancoolers

:surfer: