I removed the O/S shock today and noticed the bottom bush is also starting to fail with a split in the rubber. The actual action of both units feel fine though so not sure if I will notice much difference in use. We will see in the Spring when I will start using her again.

Rob.

 

You should have seen the pieces of poly urethane that came out of my top control arm bushings. They had mostly left the scene and scattered all over the road before i even took the suspension apart. They were replaced with Metalastic bushings
Metal on metal, was what I had. Terrible negative camber, the lowers had disintegrated also. The camber was OK, when i bought the car, but after ~250 miles over 12 months, they disintegrated.

Dunno when they were installed, but i suspect a long time ago. They were embossed WEL POLYURETHANE.

Doug

 

I received new Bilsteins (B6) a few days ago, installing them Tomorrow, but won't be able to drive the car until the motor is back in.

The yellow upper bushes that came with the shocks are quite squishy/pliable by hand.

Doug

 

It varies from application to application (with most brands) but Boge/Sachs are not what they used to be in a lot of European model circles. I'd be interested to hear where current production are manufactured for the XJS and if they actually last more than 15K miles.
I put KYB's on my 90 maybe five years/30K ago with most of those miles when I started driving it daily again a few years ago and while not worn out they are very, very soft and I don't remember them being that way when new. Rides well but this car has comfort to spare
imo so I'm pondering Bilstein's next time. It's mass flopping over in transitions even just in street driving is kind of annoying. Little more BMW and less Lincoln Town Car wouldn't hurt things.

 

Well the Boges I have just fitted to my car are Chinese made. I don’t know where Boges used to be made back in the day. I purchased through SNG Barrett so hope they will do the job.

Rob.

 

Figures. Back when they were actually OE on a lot of stuff they were German made, bounced around over the years to various other European countries. I quit buying them years ago when I saw the China thing, I killed a couple in pretty short order on some old VW's.
I tend to stick to Koni and Bilstein, the gray body KYB used to be made in Japan and still seemed to be of good quality for the money but I've heard they are no longer. All application dependent though.

 

I put KYB on my XJ-S a few months ago, purchased on Amazon at a very good price. Gray in color, made in Japan, and am very happy with them. Much better than the Gabriel brand that I had installed a few years back, which were much too harsh and were replaced under warranty twice for noise.

 

Most people are fairly happy with those KYB, same thing I bought. They are still damping other than being a bit floaty and soft. As is often the case with the XJS when I was researching dampers I didn't find many people with
much mileage on anything to comment on long term use. I wouldn't bet my life on it as I only drove it a small amount right after they were installed but I strongly suspect they were not this soft early on.