Hello all. Well I just had my Bilsteins installed today and I was expecting an improved ride. Instead, what I now have is a worse ride than before. The ride now is what it felt like after the last time I broke a shock (slightly "loose" ride quality and when coming to a stop, the truck bobs around a few times before settling. Nothing drastic, but just enought to be annoying.) My question is, since the Bilsteins are brand new, what else could be causing this?

Perhaps you got the wrong shocks.

I checked the part #'s and they were correct.

While a Newbie, from what I have seen only a spring set up change will improve ride and bottoming. My 05 is a nightmare, and there is no way shocks will fix that!

Lloyd,
bpdA is not complaining about the bottoming problem that seems to plague the '05's. Shocks do have a strong influence on the ride quality. Try driving without shocks, you'll see.

bpdA,
It sounds like the at least one of the shocks may be bad out of the box. Did you go from the OEM shocks to the Bilsteins or did you have something else on there? What part numbers did you get?

I already got rid of the boxes, but the part #'s would be:

Front
B46-1099-H2
Rears
BE3-6422-H0

I hope its not bad right out of the box as I bought Bilsteins for their supposed quality. Could it be the leaf springs??? I don't remember seeing anything wrong with them (took pics during installation) but didn't look specifically at them either.

I think your shocks are just fine. I think your just not used to the ride yet. Biggest difference I felt after installing my Bilsteins was that road imperfections are magnified (ie. jittery over uneven concrete). The bigger stuff is soaked up a lot better than stock shocks though. If you compressed your shocks before installing them you should have noticed (at least I did) that the Bilsteins compress and rebound faster and easier than stocks. Thus you will get some "sway" on quick stop and gos at lower speeds. But it's controlled sway, not rocking and it becomes very predictable. Now throw some seriously poor road conditions at them such as off roading now thats where the Bilsteins excel. Your stock shocks we're designed for 90% on road comfort where as the Bilsten's were designed for 90% off road comfort.

Now some people may argue thier on-road comfort increased after installing Bilsteins. Either thier stocks we're completely gone or they have some really nice roads where they live IMO.

That logic kind of makes sense as the rocking is controlled and very minor. Everyother aspect of the ride quality seemed to have improved. Guess I'm just too sensitive! Thanks