I would guess a first-time rebuild at 20k would be basic. Usual rates seem to be like $125-200/ea. Plus shipping both ways.

So $600-1000ish, including shipping?

Perhaps a vendor can chime in. Or someone who has rebuilt a few sets can chime in to tell us the realistic mileage intervals and cost for typical street use or dual duty use.

 

This why i love this community, so informative! Thanks for all the input, im still debating and see if i can reduce the ohlins to a more reasonable amount but at this point for ease of mind and cost, buying a new set seems to be the way to go. If anyone is selling a set of ohlins (or fortune autos) in Irvine PM me please!! trying to source a set.

 

So, considering all this...what's the expected life span of say...OEM CR shocks? It seems it could be far, far more mileage?

 

It depends of course on what kind of miles they are, but my guess would be around 70k miles. But you could probably go 100k if you didn't mind a slight degradation in performance.

The problem though with CR shocks is they can't be rebuilt. So once they are worn, they must be replaced. For similar money that CR cost new (less even) you could get quality shocks that can be rebuilt once they wear out. Bilstein and Koni are examples.

It used to be you could find low mileage used CR for comparatively cheap. That was a good bargain way to go. But if buying new, IMO money is better spent on something that can be rebuilt, if you are planning to keep the car that long, which it sounds like you are.

 

Well...if buying a set of CR shocks is $700-1000 every 70K miles....then they're a MUCH cheaper option than first buying a $2400 system and then rebuilding it for $800 (average) every 20-50K miles. Another advantage of buying a new set to swap on means 0 down time. A rebuild takes a couple weeks, door to door.

Eventual availability of the CR shocks is probably the issue. Plus...I (and many people) prefer the driving feel of the Öhlins. And you can build on them and customize them. Think of them as a higher end Koni Yellow. You can build a faster setup based on Öhlins....if that's your purpose.

Konis or Bilsteins are probably the cheapest option for most purposes. They seem to be indestructible and rebuilds are relatively cheap. Plus, you can configure them in many different ways.

For street use, though, the draw of the Öhlins really has to be the overall driving feel. The car does feel really REALLY nice to drive with them. If you're willing to pay less to sacrifice that, then there are tons of options.

I (me) would not buy Öhlins if I wasn't using them, as their name suggests, on the road and track.

I would buy something else that felt 80-90% as good, but lasted much longer, if I was just street driving.

 

Agreed. But if he is considering CR, then Koni or Bilstein is a more fair comparison, performance wise, and cost wise like you mentioned. So if that is the comparison, then I think Koni or Bilstein is a better idea than CR simply because they can be rebuilt.