@sarek thank you. I’m sure that person was bummed about the quick part failure. Mind if I ask - were they the Chinese ones. Or Arnott’s?

Check this out -- the Arnott’s do not have the external reservoir. Interesting eh? Install instructions from Arnott show the part pretty clearly. Attached PDF. What is also interesting is they have the same part # for left and right side whereas the JLR genuine have a different number left and right. I’m guessing this is because there is no external little reservoir (to break off... btw, so not sure I care that there’s not an “external reservoir” really). So the shocks are the same left to right.

https://arnott.mycarparts.com/items/SKE-5713

PS I have emailed Arnott asking for clarification on 1) why they use same part # left and right side and 2) why they don't have the external reservoir . Rock Auto has the Arnott’s for $501 each which is cheaper than everywhere else at $600 USD + Arnott also has a 2 year warranty on these bad boys, JLR has basically no warranty beyond 1 year part warranty as far as I can tell

 

The Europa parts shock has them as L and R. Also it lists them as OE. Price reduced from 1400 to 315.

Perhaps there is just no getting around the inherent design weakness of hollow shocks. OEM or aftermarket. Both are on borrowed time. Maye this hurricane season will bring lots of lightly used flooded urban defender parts to the market.

 

Feels like another part of the issue is that the suspension wasn’t designed with a down travel limiter.

The Dunlop replacement I installed from Lucky8 explicitly called out that there must be a separate limiter to prevent the suspension from over extending the shock.

When the wheel drops all the way down off road it’s hanging all that weight on the shock which it explicitly was not designed for.

 

That is weird - There’s no limiter on L663. What are you supposed to do, weld one up? Install a strap?

 

Also here is what Arnott replied with:

Thank you for reaching out to us and for your interest in our products. The SKE-5713 would work for both the left and right side rear shocks. These shocks deliver active electronic dampening that adapts to road and driving conditions for optimal comfort and control. Being electric, they do not make use of an air reservoir.

then --> I sent them links to threads here on the forums --> replied again with:

That was a very interesting thread to browse through. As far as the reservoir, our products are engineered to be as good as or even exceed the performance of the OE. We have several products without reservoirs when the OE had them. This shock should give you good, reliable performance without the concern of damaging it by taking it off road.

All that being said, you wouldn't want to mix the OE shocks with an Arnott shock. You'd either want to replace them in pairs or just maintain the OE shocks.

Please let us know if you have any questions and we’ll be more than happy to assist.

 

In my case I just ignored it… but the correct answer is probably something like the front SYA kit that has limiter straps. I know there is load on the shock at full extension because I had to jack up the A-arm slightly to reach the shock and bolt it together.

 

Well not to crap on L8 who offers great stuff, but people are breaking rear CV joints because they are not offering limiter straps on that kit. So basically -- you install the L8 L663 SYA kit and offroad -- you will be breaking your rear CV joints. In fact, it causes the problem. They are aware and have not altered the kit ... so ... not impressed.

 

I noticed this too and had to do the same thing when I replaced my driver rear shock - yep !

 

To be clear I only mentioned the L8 SYA kit because it has a limiter strap... I wasn't trying to imply that spacers to push stuff down plus limiters was a good idea, in fact what I was going for was "less travel than stock" using a limiter that prevents the shocks from fully extending is probably a good idea and honestly something LR should have included in their design. If more people actually offroaded their rigs and broke these shocks there would probably be a reasonable grounds for some kind of safety/remediation campaign to replace the defective shocks. I grumble about it but honestly I use my stuff, it wears out, I fix it. Not happy about it but not overly concerned either.