club.liberty.asn.au

An interesting weekend.
MY06 3.0RB wagon, reversing out of a parking spot... clunk!
Drove home very quietly, listening for noises (it was mechanical weight - not a trivial / trim sound)...

Took it over to the mechanic this morning, with no weight load we immediately saw the shock/coil assembly flopping around in the suspension tower.

The shock itself was in completely workable condition, no split, leaks etc. Only the top threaded shaft had sheared off, right up against the top nut (still captive under the rubber cap).
This suggests the factory at Subaru may have overtightened the top nut but that's yet to be determined!
I'm sending the parts back to Subaru later today for them to assess, as i believe the shock is still serviceable, and only the mounting failed due to an assembly error.
Hoping for a replacement shock, or at the very least a significant discount on the replacement part cost.

Wish me luck.

This happened to the wife's car, was just driving up a driveway and that clunk noise - thought it was the sway bar link.
Jacked it up and the strut falls away from the top hat.

I found a set of used front's and swapped them over.

But....... between the time of fitting the new/used set I got a friend to weld that threaded piece/plate back on because we needed the car, had no issues with it.

This also happened to me. Perfect excuse to get the shockworks c-o's fitted.

Just had it happen on mine front passenger side.

Aftermarket Bilsteins they had done 100kkms after 6 years so they've done well.

A mate of mine who is a specialist said either under or over tightening, metal fatigue or just a latent defect.

I have taken this car up some pretty dodgy dirt roads and smashed heaps of potholes many a time. The nut on the driver side strut feels tight, so I think it is probably a combination of the last 3 factors

I found a replacement pair of dampers direct from Germany for 30% less than Australia even after paying for shipping:

https://www.fahrwerke-stossdaempfer.de/

lcn wrote:I'm sending the parts back to Subaru later today for them to assess, as i believe the shock is still serviceable, and only the mounting failed due to an assembly error.
Hoping for a replacement shock, or at the very least a significant discount on the replacement part cost.

Wish me luck.

I'm curious what their response was, I'm guessing as the car is 10 years old, subaru did not offer to cover any part of the cost.