Completely UNBIASED Suspension Shootout [Shock Value Conclusion] 

You guys should do a cheaper shock round up. Maybe throw in one of the more expensive setups in to see if you can pick it out of the crowd. Would be curious to see how something like the 5100, emus, dobs etc compare to each other and to one of the more expensive setups.

Do you know how rare it is to see any form of blind testing in the auto hobby? Kudos for that.

Kings FTW.. 5years so far, no leaks, no fading, SCARY smooth at 80mph on desert roads and 15ish psi. Icons, in the FJ cruiser world, no other shock company over the past 14yrs have had more complaints of breaking, leaking, and for sale ads after rebuilds than icon. I watch lots of off road racing competitions, King, Fox, Bilstein, Walker Evans seem to be the dominant suspension of choice. But for me, "if you want to win, win with the King"

Great little video series with awesome info. I would love to see a round up of shock set ups under $1500, like Bilstein 6112/5160, Fox 2.0's, Icon Stage 1's, etc.

Please do a video tearing apart the Fox’s to see if they were defective or if that’s actually how they were meant to perform. Kind of mind blowing how bad they were during the test

Great series! Would love to see a review of the Bilstein 6110/ 5160 shocks!

Excellent video gents! I have King 3.0's with remote adj resi's on my chevy 1500 daily driver, light overlander, work truck and they have been great so far. For anyone considering going with the remote adjusters on any of these kits, do yourself a favor and splurge on them as the adjustability is 100% worth it! Make em soft for onroad, make them hard for offroad/hauling/towing... increases the versatility of the system. Cheers!

So speaking overall ranked would be 1-king 2-bilstein 3-icons 4- elkas 5-fox And correct if me im wrong it was just never really stated Great series btw guys!

My vote goes to blind testing different AT, hybrid and MT tires ☝️

Excellent series and information! As Ian mentioned, Bilstein tuned the shocks for stock form, with sway bar in tact. They engineer their shocks to be direct bolt on and have best performance out of the box for a stock setup. As with any setup, modifications to the rig required adjustments (tuning, spring swaps, etc) to the shocks accordingly.

I'd go with the Bilstein... Wait, I did! Excellent guys! Thx for this series. As I asked before, do it again with the likes of 5100's, Fox 2.0, and so on, what we most run I think 👍👍 Lake Havasu 🌞 Az.

Great series. Would like to see comparison on a truck weighted down with steel bumpers, sliders, under armor, roof top tent, 33” tires, winch

Great series, my Bilstein 6112/5160 have 53,000 miles on them and I am looking to upgrade, so this testing came out at the perfect time.

Great series! I know this was done with your own money (really expensive) but it would be great to see another blind test between Dobinsos, locked offroad, radflow, OME BP51, maybe Eibachs or Ironmans foam cell pro

Great series of videos. My ICONs on my FJ doing pretty good after 50K miles. One coilover leaked outside of warranty, but they fixed it and shipped it back for free. How about testing winches. From Warn down to the $300 HF winch, see which one works, fails, burns up, etc...

I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Dobinsons MRR 3 way adjustable kit. Would be nice to see these added to the comparison.

Would love to see the dobinson MRR and the rough country vertex added to this series. Heard good things about them. Great vid!

Thanks for running this test you guys. Recieved some great info. Would like to see the Aussie's tested. OME's & Dobinson's

I have been running the Elka 2.5 DC’s that are adjustable since February and have been loving them.

Of course custom valving can change things. However for those who are buying out the box set ups this is huge. Thanks guys!

The kings leaking after a few hours that’s insane for what they cost.

Thanks for doing this! Would love to see further reviews with Dobinsons, ADS, and Radflos if possible.

I’d like to see an upper control arm comparison. Thank you for doing this.

Thanks for doing this test fellas! Loving it and happy to hear the 8112s I went with performed well! Just wish I could’ve gotten the adjusters with my evo greys

Great video series! I modify Offroad trucks for a living so this was definitely interesting. I run the Icons on my Tacoma, and I think if you guys had matched the rest of the shocks by using 2.5 w/remote resi (and possibly compression adjusters) paired with their Rxt leaf springs they would have scored even better. My truck is running that setup with proper bump stop setup as well and it floats through the desert 👌🏻 For anyone wondering, the offset lower shock mounts on the rear are designed to allow for more usable travel.

Love the way this test was run. I wonder how much different the results would be with a functional sway bar?

Great series! Wish I would have seen this about a year ago!

Enjoyed your reviews but wondered why you didn't include the cost of each shock. It seems like that would be a big factor for buyers when deciding what shocks to buy. I understand that these are high end shocks but including the price would be very helpful in future reviews like this.

Ya the Fox is a “race series.” They were not designed from the ground up with the specific vehicle in mind. They have a premade shock that is the best fit for that vehicle. Their performance series is made/designed specifically for a specific vehicle. I have the performance series 2.0’s on my 4Runner and they’re nice and comfortable. They do tend to blow through whoops though at slower speeds which kinda sucks. So ya the “performance elite” is also designed for a vehicle specifically. It would be nice to see how those fare.

Inwould really love to hear a follow up about the 8112 shocks. I’ve got 5100 on my 06 4R and I would hate to go any softer on the road.

Just noticed that the fox shocks they are testing are not the DSC series so don’t get your hopes down neither are the kings

Great series, liking and commenting for the algorithm because, like others, I am hoping to see another series with cheaper/more affordable options. Especially if I am looking for a daily truck that can go down forestry service roads and such.

Awesome series! I’d love to see how all of them would work if they were tuned specifically

I have the same exact truck with the exact fox shocks by pass front & rear that you guys tested , I have the front end lifted 1.5 inch and I have 1 inch lift in the rear with 32inch tall Toyo AT3’s and the Tacoma TRD pro wheels , I don’t really do high speed off road the fastest I will drive is 40mph on dirt/gravel roads but I do a lot of technical trails with deep ruts ,big boulders ,steep hills and they do great , I have 42k miles on my fox shocks and they are holding up great considering my truck practically lives off the pavement and I have not serviced them at all, good job testing all these shocks though, I think we all enjoyed this series !

This style of product review is EXCELLENT!! Of course it is also probably prohibitively costly and time-intensive. If you kept doing it, you'll be heroes. But if you can't justify it, most of us will understand. If I ever build a true off-road basher (vice my daily driver 4R with a baby 5100 lift and some get-home stuff, and AWD so no hard core trail work) I will definitely be tracking down your products and product recommendations.

It’d be really interesting to get some of the vendors on to discuss their shocks. Especially Fox!

It would be nice to see a review of Falcons. I have a set with tow / haul function. They are great handling on road and smooth off-road.

I had a third generation Tacoma and I wanted a really nice coilover/shock combo. I've always ran ICON's on my 4Runners and was so excited to try FOX Factory 2.5's. WORST money I've ever spent on any of my Toyota's. I've put other versions of their shocks on before and have been so happy but I had the worst out of the box experience with the FOX Factories with the same complaints as you.

This was an awesome comparison. One suggestion would have been to have another stock Tacoma as a control to drive a little between each set just to re establish the baseline.

Does Fox still offer one free re-valve though? It would be worth a call maybe to Fox to ask them what the valving was and why it was done that way.

I got icons, 40k miles and tons of offroad and no leaks, im happy with them, I have hydro bumps so I don't know how they would be with them but they work great, lots of jumps amd high speed whoops, they could use some more rebound

Had them all and all promised better than stock ride quality but only one shock passed the test and passed it with flying colors, the Fox Performance Elite DSC’s. They’ve completely blown away all of them and even my Adjustable Kings got their butts kicked. Fix Performance Elite DSC’s are amazing and would swear that they work like they’re computerized, that’s very easy to set and drive.

Fox shocks on Tacos are tuned per Toyota’s specifications, not Fox specifications. Try driving a ranger raptor and taco trd pro, since both are on 2.5 similar shocks, but, you’ll see both shocks tuned differently as per manufacturer’s specifications.

I was interested to see Dobinson tested as well. But this series was amazing. Bring more!

Maybe test the ironman 4x4 foam cell Pro , it would be interesting to test them the same way to compare with a normal shock of this price range.

This is a really good review!! Thank you for taking the time to switch out 5 (six) different shocks!!

I love Bilsteins! Have had the 5100/5160 setup in my truck and the 6112 setup on my Bronco! These things are bulletproof, economical and perform way better than their price point would suggest! I’m surprised by the performance of the Kings! I always thought about upgrading but couldn’t get past the pricing. Now, i’m glad i never pulled the trigger on them.

Please post something about pulling the foxs apart. Super super curious why they were so bad.

Test 6112, icon 2.5 ifp, fox 2.5 and ironman 2.5 coilover. I feel most people get front coilovers without resivors

Could you guys please do a comparison video between the bilstein 6112, 5160 set up and the eibach stage 2r PLEASE! Im debating between the two for my 4runner and I need more information on actual ride quality on and off road. I believe most people can benefit from this comparison as these two setups are the most popular right now. Thank you!!!

Would love to see you do the comparison again after getting all of the shocks tuned if you still have all of them. Also would be great to see a follow up video if you decided to tear apart the Fox's to check for issues

You guys planning on breaking the shocks down to see what may have been causing the issues you pointed out in the video? I'd be curious on the results of that.

Extremely good series!

Thanks guys

I had the icon 2.5 with reservoirs.. they are amazing.

Videos were all amazing, thank you both for sharing with us all. I'm very interested to see the valving setup on the bilstein as I too thought they were supposed to be more of a "stiffer" ride then what your both experienced. Wondering if they changed it to a more linear type? I would love to see a similar video using a larger truck such as a tundra 😊..keep up the fantastic work!

This was a great test series! Thanks for putting these shocks through such a thorough test. Very helpful.

Biggest thing for all of us who daily is the risk of having to put the truck on block’s while sending in the components for repairs. Reliability is huge.

Please test the Bilstein 6112/5160

Those Icon rear shocks are for the RXT leaf packs, not for the factory travel, definitely not the right shocks for this stock-test. The offset lower mount is to give more travel

For 90% of people all of your suspensions are overkill and are way more money that most people need and you know it. Most people who do a lift would be very happy with a basic Bilstein or Eibach lift. Advertising, forums and RU-vid videos are a powerful thing convincing so many people to get these super expensive kits when they don't even need them. Is the reason you only included the expensive options because you like money???

awesome thanks again, didn't realize you were doing a summary video so this was a great surprise. Awesome series !!

FWIW, I am running 08+ Tundra 5160 rears on my GX due to the extra stroke, with a very minor increase in collapsed length. Worth trying for loaded down Tacoma especially since they're valved for leafs

I've got two additions up for suggestion. One cheap workhorse shock as a baseline reference (maybe OME?) and the increasingly popular Dobinsons MRR reservoir shocks, which I think are supposed to compete with the likes of King and Fox.

I would definitely love to see how tuned suspension products compare. Companies, such as AccuTune, can tune based on weight and usage so it should give a better ride.

I recently spoke to a shop that does builds for 4 Runners and recommended Icon for sure

Please try Australian brands. Old Man Emu, Ironman, Dobinsons, etc

My Tacoma is my doo-all vehicles. Most of the time it is my daily drivers, mostly highway driving. Occasionally off road driving on dirt roads...no rock crawling. But I am also considering purchasing a camper trailer that is around 4000-4500 Lbs. So I'm interested in improved towing ability as well as a little off road capability.

I would have enjoyed seeing Old Man Emu and Dobinsons in the mix given they are arguably the two most well known and trusted brands in the Toyota market.

We have a 2nd gen with Bilstiens and a 3rd gen with King 2.5 with adjusters and the Kings are way less bouncy and jarring like night and day 🤙🏽

Try out locked shocks. My friend has them on his 2nd gen and I think they're under rated.

This was a really cool series. Doesn't do me any good being a Jeep house, but still cool none the less (it would probably work our way as well) .. kinda sucks when we have to eat our words, hey. But nice that you had to. Good stuff, thanks! With your couple of favourites, are you gonna run em on your trucks for a long term, real world test? (You paid for em) Some of how they would ACTUALLY be used... wandering around exploring.

Bp 51 and DOBINSON MRR

My fox coilovers are amazing on 23 sierra. But as a daily driver, i dont beat on it.. hard choice. Gotta pick 95% of your driving.almost went eibach

I've watched this numerous times and today was the first time I noticed the Modelo getting strapped in where an Icon resi would go. Lol.

PLEASE DO A TACOMA BUDGET SHOCK SHOOT OUT🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 Some of us can’t afford $3000+ for shocks.

Any chance y’all could open all the shocks up and compare shim stacks/tuning? Especially that 8100 series would be cool to confirm why the variability. Or even the Foxs not performing. Maybe even a follow up video on tuned vs untuned shocks!

Great series guys! I was somewhat disappointed with the results of certain shocks and especially at their price point you’d expect better handling. I’ve seen guys running Pedder’s and regular OME’s going through washboards over thousands of miles and get better results.

Be cool to see the Eibach shocks tested

Loved the series! So, which ones would you recommend? It sounded like king on road and bilstein off road.

Thanks for doing this. You guys have helped a lot with this video. Great job! 👍🏽

Thanks for doing this!

Please test dobinsons IMS!

Hey guys awesome, series, it would be cool to see the more inexpensive shock testing such as the fox 2.0 and eibach pro truck 2.0 coil overs, terraflex falcon and Bilstein 6112s .

Wow! Great video and series fellas! Comparisons like this are needed with all the choices and options out there! Hats off! One question though. What was the ride height set at? Stock or maybe an 1” -1.5” at the most by the looks of it. Cheers!

Fantastic video. I love comparisons because most people cant afford to purchase a bunch of items and test them. Best off road: Bilstein, but too soft on road. Best on street: Fox, but way too harsh off road.

6112 comparison to similar set ups next!

Don't forget to add eibach!!! They have 2 setups to choose from for my 4runner👍

I wonder if the tune on those Fox shocks is something generic? Thats definitely an interesting result. I think I'll probably have to give the Bilstein's a try though, given that it's kind of the best buy for what you get.

It would be priceless to display an accelerometer chart during your rides. Can we do this again after 30K miles?

Plz do the same test on a heavy truck. F250 with 5-6" lift

would like to see how the OME BP-51 would stack up against the rest of those 5

Lights and related lighting accessories would be fantastic to see reviewed.

Do you have to adjust them to get better results? Did you adjust each shock to make sure they were competitive? Love blind shoot-outs.

Amazing series! Would be great to see a comparison between iron mans foam cell pro, dobinsons, bp51, radflow and bilstein 5100s .

the icon can get away with a longer rear shock body because of the offset mount. they done this to get the most travel possible out of a stock location shock and bump stop setup

Thanks for the video. Haven't seen anything like it.

Doing a test on cheaper shocks that most people are likely to use. I’d like to see the 5100, Ironman 4x4, dobinson, old man emu, eibach.

Would like to see a test of the Dobinson MRR.

I was going to buy Fox Shocks for my truck but thankfully the sales rep talked me out of it saying how stiff they ride . I have Bilstein 6112 in front and 5100s in the back and rides better than OEM.