I’m pretty pissed!!

My son and I have been finishing up some of the winter upgrades to his 92 Yukon. Some of the upgrades include:

Rebuilt transmission

Rebuilt differentials with 4.56 gears

4 inch lift kit to go with the 36 inch tires.

New dashboard to replace the crumbing original.

Heated rear glass, heated mirrors

New carpet with lots of sound deadener

And rebuilt suspension, which is the source of my frustration.

The last few Suspension rebuilds I have been involved with I used energy suspension polyurethane bushings. I got the new bushings, I was surprised to find the instructions say to reuse the original outer shells and inner sleeves. All of my inner sleeves are either too rusty to reuse, or too damaged from wear. I called Energy Suspension, they told me they stopped including those parts in an attempt to meet a certain price break. To me, it seems stupid to expect a customer to reuse a wear item for a replacement part. That’s kinda like buying a crankshaft kit, and being told to reuse the bearings. I have no clue how much more the sleeves/washers would add to the cost, but more than likely I would have just spent the money to have everything I needed.

After exhausting all my spare parts looking for useful sleeves, I finally decided to just buy cheap stock replacement bushings to get the sleeves and washers. Only then did I find the aftermarket replacement parts have different diameter inner sleeves!!

My next move: I’m going to my local savalge yard to see if some of the later model wrecked trucks have useable parts. The salvage yard will give me the parts as long as the were damaged and not useable from collision damage. If I strike out there, I’m not sure what to do next.

It just pisses me off that the penny pinching todays manufacturing does has left me with a problem that can’t be solved. They expect you to reuse a consumable wear item, nobody offers the parts, aftermarket replacement aren’t compatible, and it seems nobody cares. Why would they? I have already made the purchase, they have my money, and won’t refund it because the parts have been installed.

Added insult to injury: I found out Dorman offers new control arms that are about 75 bucks more than what I have spent on ball joints and useless bushings. If I can’t find parts, that’s probably what I’m going to have to do.

That seems pretty asinine to me as well.

I'll have to remember to NOT use Energy Suspension bushings.

The bad thing is the penny pinching is the companies trying to survive with all the consumers using price as their guidelines. It seems like anytime someone wants something,10 people want to tell them where they can get it cheaper,not even the same item most of the time,a cheaper version. 95 percent of people buy based solely on price and everyone suffers in the long run. If nobody buys energy suspension because they cost more than Chinese knockoffs,then energy suspension has to find a way to cut corners or close their doors. And it's not just energy suspension everybody is having to cut corners because everyone knows where to get("just as good") for less money.

If they don't make it... You make it.

Ricko1966 said:

The bad thing is the penny pinching is the companies trying to survive with all the consumers using price as their guidelines. It seems like anytime someone wants something,10 people want to tell them where they can get it cheaper,not even the same item most of the time,a cheaper version. 95 percent of people buy based solely on price and everyone suffers in the long run. If nobody buys energy suspension because they cost more than Chinese knockoffs,then energy suspension has to find a way to cut corners or close their doors. And it's not just energy suspension everybody is having to cut corners because everyone knows where to get(just as good) for less money.

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Yup. It's all about lowest bidder price shopping. Not shopping for value or quality. All the questionable Chinese stuff on the market for a slightly lower cost is killing off the decent stuff.

China offers products that cost less than the raw materials do here.
I used to pride myself in using domestic products even if they cost more.
Then the domestic products i was buying started coming from China.
I agree with the salvage yard sentiment. Used OE parts are significantly better than some aftermarket parts.

I’m not familiar with the 92+ years so forgive my question.
How come the 4” lift kit didn’t come with bushing?
I’d expect the lift kit to come with those.

Trumps tariffs game might fix some of this crap.

^^^^^^^^^^^Yeah.......might not^^^^^^

I saw the writing on the wall and bought everything I'll need for my C15 refurbishing months ago RIGHT after Trump won.
Knowing his stance on China I hopped on the internet and quickly abused the "Buy Now" button and now I just got to wait it out and see how this economic move of his goes. Reputable sellers who have stock on hand should maintain some form of seller decency but hard telling, it all boils down to the law of supply and demand. As far as Dorman parts, never had a bad experience.

Zelph said:

I’m not familiar with the 92+ years so forgive my question.
How come the 4” lift kit didn’t come with bushing?
I’d expect the lift kit to come with those.

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The lift kit is basically relocation brackets that bolt where the factory control arms went, with new mounting brackets 4 inches lower. It also includes relocation brackets for the torsion bar crossmember, and front differential. It has blocks for the rear springs.

I really haven’t modified very many 4WD vehicles, this is the first lift kit I have ever personally installed. Some things I like, some things definitely could be better.

Finkaire said:

China offers products that cost less than the raw materials do here.
I used to pride myself in using domestic products even if they cost more.
Then the domestic products i was buying started coming from China.
I agree with the salvage yard sentiment. Used OE parts are significantly better than some aftermarket parts.

Click to expand...

I agree, why pay a premium when you can buy the same junk for significantly less??

It just really chaps my ass. Their penny pinching has left me with a big problem that doesn’t have a realistic solution.

I can’t use their product without the seemingly unobtainium parts.

My options:

#1 Buy new aftermarket bushings that have all the needed parts. While that solves the immediate issue, energy suspension STILL has my money, and I have a bunch of useless parts.

Option 2: go to my local salvage yard and hopefully find usable sleeves/ washers. I can use their product without bushing I bought, but the time and effort far exceeds the cost of buying a couple sets of these bushings!! Meaning they could have tripled the price, and I still would come out ahead verses the headaches I’m dealing with.

Option 3: buy replacement control arms. Most of the issues with option 1, with the added uncertainty of questionable quality.

I have bitched on this forum many times before about this crap. I DESPISE the throwaway mentality society has today, and it absolutely infuriates me that a company spends decades making a name for themselves, only to screw it up in a fraction of the time, all in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Once the reputation is damaged, it’s far more difficult to repair than to maintain.

I sent energy suspension a somewhat nasty email explaining my complaints. I made sure to tell them over the last 30 years I have bought many sets of their products, and that I have a couple other projects that will soon need replacement parts. I made sure to tell them before buying anything, I’ll be reading the instructions. And if I see the same nonsense, the replacement parts will come from a competitor.

It may accomplish nothing, but I feel a little better venting. If I hear anything from them, I’ll report back.

Cant help with the bushing issues but...If you have to turn up the torsion bars any....beyond the 4" of lift....to clear a 36" tire- I would go ahead and get the Rough Country upper control arms to fix the upper ball joint angle. Otherwise it'll probably eat upper ball joints like mine did. The lowers don't seem to have as bad of an angle so you're good there.
Dont let whoever does the alignment use factory specs that call for positive camber. With a bigger tire it wears the outer edge quickly. Zero to a little negative works best.

Matt69olds said:

I agree, why pay a premium when you can buy the same junk for significantly less??

It just really chaps my ass. Their penny pinching has left me with a big problem that doesn’t have a realistic solution.

I can’t use their product without the seemingly unobtainium parts.

My options:

#1 Buy new aftermarket bushings that have all the needed parts. While that solves the immediate issue, energy suspension STILL has my money, and I have a bunch of useless parts.

Option 2: go to my local salvage yard and hopefully find usable sleeves/ washers. I can use their product without bushing I bought, but the time and effort far exceeds the cost of buying a couple sets of these bushings!! Meaning they could have tripled the price, and I still would come out ahead verses the headaches I’m dealing with.

Option 3: buy replacement control arms. Most of the issues with option 1, with the added uncertainty of questionable quality.

I have bitched on this forum many times before about this crap. I DESPISE the throwaway mentality society has today, and it absolutely infuriates me that a company spends decades making a name for themselves, only to screw it up in a fraction of the time, all in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Once the reputation is damaged, it’s far more difficult to repair than to maintain.

I sent energy suspension a somewhat nasty email explaining my complaints. I made sure to tell them over the last 30 years I have bought many sets of their products, and that I have a couple other projects that will soon need replacement parts. I made sure to tell them before buying anything, I’ll be reading the instructions. And if I see the same nonsense, the replacement parts will come from a competitor.

It may accomplish nothing, but I feel a little better venting. If I hear anything from them, I’ll report back.

Click to expand...

Back when Hostess brought back the Suzy-Q, I was very disappointed in the product as it was not like the old one and for whatever reason, it bothered me enough to write them a letter with my complaints. I was shocked, about a month later, I got a letter in the mail from them with the usual corporate type stuff, saying they would look into improving the product. They also sent me some coupons. I figured they were just blowing smoke.

Well I was double shocked several months later when I bought another box of them and those people at Hostess actually DID improve them and make them like the old ones.

Maybe Energy Suspension will be like Hostess.

bucket said:

Back when Hostess brought back the Suzy-Q, I was very disappointed in the product as it was not like the old one and for whatever reason, it bothered me enough to write them a letter with my complaints. I was shocked, about a month later, I got a letter in the mail from them with the usual corporate type stuff, saying they would look into improving the product. They also sent me some coupons. I figured they were just blowing smoke.

Well I was double shocked several months later when I bought another box of them and those people at Hostess actually DID improve them and make them like the old ones.

Maybe Energy Suspension will be like Hostess.

Click to expand...

I do not want energy suspension to make better Suzy Qs. WTF is wrong with you?