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PRG Aluminum Frontier / Xterra Coilovers

BAD REVIEW 
17K views 108 replies 19 participants last post by  itsyvesxterrra 
#1 · (Edited)
Redacted,

Read the rest of this thread, these things are a death trap and subpar in every way.
 
#2 ·
Happy to hear you had a positive experience with the PRG coilovers when it was all said and done.

When I ordered my Radflo's from Greg, they just had just released that product but I was hesitant to pull a trigger. I'm sure this review will help subsequent buyers have confidence.

I might have to head down to the garage to ensure I got the proper spring rate, I never did check!
 
#3 ·
For slow technical stuff, they do awesome as well. And now with the aftermarket UCA, no coil bucket contact. I did not grind anything away.
Be careful with that ball joint. Those SPC arms require grinding for the vast majority of X's that they are installed on. It doesn't look like your coilbucket was ground previously, so you may have gotten lucky with your alignment that it does not contact. However, as things get jostled, or perhaps at the time of your next alignment, you may find that it starts to get cut.
 
#4 ·
Be careful with that ball joint. Those SPC arms require grinding for the vast majority of X's that they are installed on. It doesn't look like your coilbucket was ground previously, so you may have gotten lucky with your alignment that it does not contact. However, as things get jostled, or perhaps at the time of your next alignment, you may find that it starts to get cut.
Yes sir. I’ve kept a close eye even at full droop and flex, no contact. I’ve been keeping an eye though for sure.


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#7 ·
Update Feb 2021

I was on a gravel road today when suddenly I heard a thump and I thought I somehow blew a tire.

Turns out it was much worse. Not sure how exactly this happened. I’ve blown shocks and seen them go before too, but it’s always been the seals. This was maybe my fifth time out with this set up. I do use my truck, but I don’t abuse it. I run out of guts before truck every time.

It also took out the abs sensor on this side.

I’m going to give myself a cooling off period to try and figure out what happened. I’d hate to either say something I’ll regret or is at least in part untrue. Too much ugly in the world to add more. Stay safe my friends.

Pics of the x carnage:
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#20 · (Edited)
I’m going to give myself a cooling off period to try and figure out what happened. I’d hate to either say something I’ll regret or is at least in part untrue. Too much ugly in the world to add more. Stay safe my friends.
I called Greg and let me him know what happened today. I referenced an e-mail that I composed and sent from the tow truck on Sunday night, but apparently it never left my phone (it makes sense as service was spotty in the area). I then actually sent them over to him.

He agreed that this should not have happened and pointed to a design issue with the top hat. He will be sending out a replacement set with the corrected top hat design as well an ABS sensor in good faith.

Once the new set arrives, I will provide an update as well as try to make sense of the corrected design.
 
#9 ·
I don't think you need take time to compose yourself, that's a catastrophic failure and you have the right to be mad. I've seen 5100s do something similar but not quite come apart like that. I suppose it would be difficult for Greg to test every single thing he sells and he probably relies on the quality control of the company that produces the strut, so I don't think he'd be the one to blame for the failure. However, hopefully he'll make this right and fix this for you. Additionally, he needs to get in touch with everyone who's purchased them and let them know about this, as well as pulling these from his website. The road you're on doesn't look too bad, the 5100 I saw blow up was on some extreme washboard. This is material failure and you can clearly see it is cheap cast metal, I'd expect the others he sold to do the same.
 
#14 · (Edited)
It’s hard to tell from the photos what the point of failure was... but it is catastrophic indeed.

Update us when you determine what exactly failed.
I need to get an emissions inspection done so I ordered a cheap set of assembled struts plus a spacer off Amazon tonight. That should let me limp around for a bit.

The weird thing is that I had noticed the X’s nose taking a dive in the driveway over the last few days but attributed it to being parked on a slope in an area of the driveway that it usually doesn’t sit. Now that I’m looking at it, the driver side is getting ready to go too but the passenger side ate the dust first.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Took the tire off this morning to more thoroughly inspect and confirmed that all parts are intact, the only thing to take a major dump was the shock taking an ABS sensor along for the ride.

View attachment 133400 View attachment 133401
You can tell that looks like fatigue, you can see the hole/ cap end? where the shaft goes has completely failed and pealed back. Woah.

Seems like Cobra guys had a failure or blown seals at low miles also. This sounds more like a Adlan American issue vs PRG Greg.




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#16 ·
DAYUM!!! That's impressively terrible! Do you know how fast you were going when it happened, or if it happened when you hit a pothole or something?

Also I'm super curious... are you able to drive it around while it is riding on the bump stop like that or are there clearance issues somewhere? haha. Either way, that's rough. Coilovers experience mostly up & down forces. Can't imagine that it should sheer sideways so easily.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Thankfully I hadn't gotten to the moderate rocky crawly section quite yet, still on a mostly graded gravel road. I was going maybe 10-15 miles an hour? I limped it back slowly but surely to the launching area for the side by sides and waited for a tow. It was a good time, thankfully I had friends there to make light of it.
 
#22 ·
I am not sure how these are setup but it sure looks like the threaded collar is up really high on the shock body.
Also what limits the down travel on your setup? The shocks should not be your down travel limiter as it will eventually pull the piston out of the body like the way yours failed. This is why people run limiting straps. I don't know how your setup works but these might be a couple things to look at.
 
#23 ·
RE: preload, I believe it is about a quarter of an inch above how they shipped from what I recall. It was adjusted after conversations with Greg.

RE down travel limitation: Sway bar is still intact, but no bump stops or the like. Greg didn’t even make mention of these on any phone conversation we had. I don’t think I’ve ever had a tire off the ground with this set up.

Truck was at 95,000 miles at time of install and 101,000 now. That make it 6,000 miles with maybe 100 of that being on anything you would consider “off road”.
 
#33 ·
But it could still have a groove to center the spring?
I still don't see how it would break the shaft unless the top shock mount is totally rigid and doesn't let the shaft move when the suspension cycles. That is why most have a bearing eyelet or the two rubber cone washers at the top mount.
 
#34 ·
I’m no engineer, but I suppose that makes sense.

Looks like my theory may be somewhat correct. You can see the two spots where lateral shaft (or coil spring) movement was machining the inside of the coil spring.

I’m wondering if the top of the shaft gave way and with the movement of the coil spring it caught the shaft and with an extraordinary amount of energy of the compressing spring then ripped the bottom of the shaft out from the shock body.

This would also explain the shaft having exited the coil spring near the bottom and now being lodged in there.

Did I mention there was a loud enough bang that I thought I’d blown a tire and by the time I came to a complete stop the coil was 50-100ft behind me?

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#39 · (Edited)
The design issue with the top is that there wasn't anything keeping the coil centered. So every time the shock moves it allows the coil to bend sideways putting stress on the shock shaft. I ain't no engineer but that's pretty clear to me.

This is the first time I've seen this thread, and just looking at the photo of the new shocks before install, you can see that the coil can just move around freely on the top hat, that failure was gonna happen the moment those shocks were assembled. Greg is smarter than that, and this is just plain wrong, negligent, and ignorant.

I'm sorry for your hassle, and I'm glad you were not injured. I hope Greg also is including an ABS sensor for you, and a check for the tow truck.
 
#40 ·
So here we are, 22 days after I spoke with PRG on the phone. The same day PRG said he’d get those sent out ASAP and accepted liability for a faulty design that had since been addressed.

The last I heard from Greg was a response to an email on 2/25. It stated I’d have tracking info that same day.

Since then I have emailed seven times and have called him every week day, leaving a message, starting 3/3.

At this point I have no confidence in PRG to deliver on their promise and cannot recommend anyone run this set up without first ensuring they have the corrected top hat design.

Not bashing the guy, knowing that when you run a small business you can have life happen to you (ie sick kid) and you simply cannot tend to your business and I don’t know that this so not the case. However I am unlikely to again conduct business with someone 1) sold me a product that I trusted to be free of such a potentially deadly design flaw 2) has a reputation for ghosting people and is seemingly doing that now.

Please, don’t let this thread become one where hatred or nasty comments are spewed that is not my intention, simply providing an update.
 
#58 ·
Between a critically hospitalized doggo (she pulled through), family in town and needing to get ready for the work from home saga to finally end come Monday morning I have had a stressful week.

From what I can tell, the new top hat design has a taper that keeps the spring from moving laterally. There is no perch to stop it from spinning, but that doesn’t worry me as much (should it?).

I threw these in and after riding some crappy $100 (yes for both) Amazon shocks with a “2 inch leveling” spacer to get me around town these feel awesome again. I’ll post a more “long term” review as time progresses.

For sake of documentation, it also took about five weeks to get the original set as well the replacements.
 
#59 ·
I came accross this post when I had a failure on the PRG coilovers as well. Mine was not as bad as the OP. The top cover of where yhe oil is spinned out. Luckily I did not loose the spring and the shaft did not break. I took my shock to Aldan American directly since it is under warranty. Did not want to wait for Greg to address this issue.
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#61 ·
I also noticed a thumping sound when I went over humps. Thats when i looked at the bottom and found hydraulic oil all over my LCA. I thought at first that it was a seal until i took the shock out. I dropped off the shock to Aldan American two days ago and told them that the top cover spins out. They will also service my other shock as well. I think the vibration affects the shock when you drive fast on dirt roads. I will give an update when i talk to the techs at Aldan American.
 
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