One of the front air shocks / struts went bad on my 2007 Vanden Plas and I was checking prices on eBay and found several pairs for sale at around $400 a pair.
My question is, has anybody purchased them and were they any good? It seems almost too good of a deal compared to OEM. Any help would be appreciated.

 

About the air strut, it's best to buy either Arnott or OEM; most aftermarket, no-named air strut aren't made of quality parts and eventually, it'll fail again soon.

- Khoa

 

Show us what is on offer in eBay and a better opinion can be given.
Back when I had a 2003 XJ6, I bought NOS suspension units on eBay and they worked perfectly well, but were, of course, the correct Bilstein units. It's difficult to see how a manufacturer could produce two units for $400 the pair. Maybe they just pay their workers a bowl of rice a day ! Other alternative is they are from a bankrupt supplier stock sell-off, or a supplier wanting to get rid of stock before sales dry up, which they will as the cars get fewer and fewer.

 

When I have needed new air shocks on 3 occasions, I have bought used original parts opposed to new " other makes "

 

If you're the one doing the labor to replace the struts, then a gamble on cheap eBay air shocks doesn't seem to be a terrible financial sink, at best they work great, at worst you just end up buying the Arnotts or OEM anyways.

But, if you're paying someone else to do the install, then just bite the bullet and go with the quality stuff since you'll be kicking yourself if you have to pay labor a second time because the cheap eBay strut gamble didn't pay off. Arnotts also come with a lifetime warranty, so if they fail 5, 10, 15+ years down the road, you won't have to shell out for struts again.

Even the high-quality Arnott air shocks are known to have issues as they age, especially in cold weather. If even the high quality stuff has issues later in life, I can't imagine a set of no-name, suspiciously cheap air struts from some random seller in China will hold up even remotely better. And even if the eBay ones did hold up for one person, there's no guarantee that they'll be good for the next person who buys them. These no-name sellers on eBay sometimes get factory rejects, shoddy rebuilds, or good quality new parts built in secret without authorization from the factory. There's no way to know which one of those you're getting when there's no branding or official store to buy from, so one person could have a great experience with these no-name eBay struts, then the next person will get the shoddy rebuilds and what both people received will look exactly the same.

 

As the other folks have said, it all depends. If you're doing the work yourself and you're not planning to do that many miles, the cheapo Chinese ones may be worth the risk. I've heard good things about the Arnotts. The original fronts on my 06 XJR started leaking after about 80,000 miles. I replaced them with rebuilt ones from RMT (based in Florida). Those lasted 120,000 miles. When I replaced those, they still held air but had lost all damping. I've now fitted a pair of those Ebay ones (2 year warranty) for $400. At over 200,000 miles on the clock, I just don't expect the poor old car to go more than another 50,000 miles before something REALLY expensive dies - hoping the cheap ones go that far. It's getting retired soon anyway and I'll use it for warm sunny days - just can't bring myself to sell it.

Good Luck!