keepmoving
Well-known member
My response to VC's (Mark) findings on the Agile's RIP kit. This was addressed to Mark at Van Compass direcctly. Feel free to roast me as I am sure I've made some enemies from this...
It seems to me that only guy left who has not yet commented on the Agile coil over system is John (from Agile) himself. I will pass on your findings to Agile as I think it is only fair that they have a chance to respond to all the negativity being said about their system, he is a customer of yours after all and deserves a fair shake. 100% positive John knows about these issues. We talked to him about it when the product was starting to enter the market. It would be great if he was on here to show us if there is solution that I don't know about.
A friend of mine has one of his kits installed and has no issues what so ever. I have driven his van on and off road and all I can say is that it rides better. It is way more stable at highway speeds and on tight mountain roads. His van is actually more fun to drive than mine given the new found stability, and these are both 2WD van. Furthermore, there are no issues due to "significant change to the roll center and dynamic camber range" as one popular member likes to point out. While this is most surely true for vehicles with super high lift kits (through increased suspension travel), it has hardly made any difference on his Sprinter compared to mine - we are taking about 1.5” increase here. If anything, I think the wheel spacers had more to due with this than the coil spring lift, but the vehicle's directional change is quite fine and maybe only slightly less fast at really slow speeds. Are you not seeing the same with the huge oversized tires and spacers you have on your van? I would think it would be worse. Another real positive is the front side to side sway is gone when exiting a driveway which is a night and day difference. - I did not bring this up and I agree that it is probably really hard to tell a difference in driving characteristics between stock, a coil kit, spacers etc. We are more worried about the longevity of the strut bushing and noise.
If you are seeing significant shock mount issues perhaps these vans were abused while driven off-road. These are vans after all and were never intended to be driven through stream beds or rutted and boulder laden trails. Mercedes benz will be the first to tell you that. A factory lifted 4x4 basic suspension (excluding the front subframe which is basically the same but on stilts) is really no different than the 2wd other than drive shafts. Let's be fair here, it is under built for heavy off-road usage. They intended the 4x4 van to be an all weather vehicle not a mountain climber (they have the G wagon for that). I have driven these vans off road and frankly the amount of vibration coming through both the steering wheel and chassis makes the van feel it is simply shaking itself apart - even with aired down tires. Unibody construction is not ideal for off-road punishment - that is why body on frame designs still exist. A properly sorted 4x4 pickup this vehicle is not, let’s all be honest here.
- Each coil kit we removed had less than 10K miles on them and driven by responsible people with 100K+ invested in their vans. As stated, we hope this is not happening to other people, but it is the reason why we do not sell the coil kit. Potential for unhappy customers. I understand there are many happy people and that is great!
All these off-road oriented upfitters (yours included), have all profited by marketing an image of an “all conquering” super van that satisfies our egos The videos I have seen of people basically trashing their vans off road-thinking that this is what this van can do because it has a few added shocks and springs and a 4x4 logo is to me quite simply silly and foolish, but hey, that's good business marketing and it seems to be working really well. To each his own I guess… - We have not trashed our test vans. They are holding up great from the many off road miles we have on them. As a vendor making off road oriented parts I feel it is up to us to put these vans to the test. We can test our products for longevity, find weak areas in the platform, address them with products when needed, and educate the public about the issues that can occur. Agile does not own a Sprinter to do this.
While I am sure I will have a lot of haters from this post, I would like to ask you specifically about some of the points you have called out about the coil over suspension.
Lack of strut boot: I can see how this is a concern and I would think that there must be a solution to cover the strut within the coil spring. Sprinterstore seems to have one on their coil over system. Interestingly, I do not see one on your front fox shock kit for the 4x4 either - at least not in the pictures - will that not cause a wear problem as well or is it OK since the shock is upside down? - Our shocks do come with boots, just not pictured. The shocks have an internal piston separating the oil and gas. They can be run either direction with out effecting damping. I agree with the Sprinter Store use of a boot, good idea! I actually think Agile got the idea for the kit from the Sprinter-Store or it was just an idea Ramsey had that might had already existed.
Excess positive camber issues: My friends van did not have any issues and I understand that camber bolts can be fitted to the top strut mounts - not sure if this helps with positive camber adjustability. - Good! We have only removed kits and our experience on these vans has proved that is could be a possible issue, as stated.
Wheel spacers: It is a possible downside as scrub radius changes (more positive I assume) which can be good and bad. But don't you have those on your van to accommodate your rims and tires? Are you experiencing any issues? - We run wheels with the proper offset, but do sell spacers for people wanting to run wide 11"+ tires. No issues. My point was the additional cost these add for people that want to run normal size tires like 265s.
Front end articulation: To me, it would seem that the front suspension articulation is more affected by the front sway bar than a very modest coil lift kit. Wouldn’t you agree?
- Yes, in a perfect world. We are making a 4x4 sway bar disconnect kit to address this. When gravity and off camber situations occur you want all the droop travel available to maintain traction.
Finally, since Agile is a good customer of yours and you seem to have potentially identified a weakness in their set up (shock mount compression), would it not make more sense to try to work with them on a solution so you both can realize additional sales, rather than call them out. I am sure John would love your feedback. His system is not perfect, but at least he is trying to come up with a real solution that can fit both 2WD and 4WD vans. - We talked about the weakness when the product was coming to market, he did not seem concerned. The solution works for many, I just never want to deal with an unhappy customer. We saw the issue with the design and knew a problem would arise. More issues might surface as time goes by and miles are put on these kits. Not sure if they will be made public though. We decided to make our finding public since so many have asked them to be presented (not just on this fourm). We felt it was the right time to share. Agile has decided to start coping our products and many of our customers have told us about the negative sales pitches of VC products from Agile when they were doing research on aftermarket suspension products. Calling our lift kit body lifts (which they are not), mini spring packs stiff (which are not), etc. Its competition in a rather small market and it is time for VC to start competing by educating people about the competition's drawbacks that have been presented to us
Not having seen the shock mount myself, one would think an additional mounting plate between the top of the coil assembly and the shock mount could be engineered and produced to evenly distribute the shock forces to the shock tower rather than have all the forces transmitted through the shock mount/bushing itself. Something similar to the mount used for the front fox shocks might work or how about something similar to your strut lift kit adapter (green adapter that fits between strut and frame). To me it seems that the kit is missing just a few parts to realize a proper solution. - A new type of bushing interface could be fabricated, but you will still be putting a load on the chassis that is more than MB intended.
While you might think that this coil set up is just not right to begin with and is a waste of engineering resources, time and money, but given the lack of real suspension solutions for the 2WD, what other choice is out there? I have already tried the HD Bilstein struts, and while better, my friends 2wd coil set up with the HD Bilsteins is much, much better. I still bottom out quite easily and the sumo front bump stop option seems like a real short term cheap solution.
You know there is a market out there for 2WD sprinter owners looking to improve the driving characteristics of these vans, the market is much bigger than the 4x4 market, propose a real solution!
Thanks for listening. - We do want to offer a better solution for 2wd vans. We are still trying to make the correct solution; a replacement strut with way more damping than a Koni or Bilstein. We had hopes the strut Agile was working on with Fox was going to make it to market.
- Mark
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