Beyond, that is, occasional oil/seal changes where accessible? Has anyone actually noticed a difference after spending nearly £200 for a full sus service?

Rear shock still seems to bounce nicely after nearly 7, and the fork has a sealed damper which should be impervious to degradation.

Personal experiences appreciated – if you’ve done it in the past, would you do it again?

Yes

No, it’s all just marketing BS*

*some or all of this statement may be utter fallacy.

Rear shock still seems to bounce nicely after nearly 7, and the fork has a sealed damper which should be impervious to degradation.

Oh how little you know! 😉

Your car oil is sealed in the engine. Do you never change that either?

I can absolutely guarantee you that servicing forks and shocks makes a very noticeable difference to performance and longevity.

Only the pros like LoCo, TFTuned etc can sort the bushes out in the forks and the damper in the shock, too.

My rear shock certainly needs a service.

🙁

Slow degredation of oil(so less noticable), dirt ingress and wear are the issues, unless they blow a seals and start leaking everywhere. 😉

You would say that though 😉

Car analogy is goodun.

Oil shares over time with use and needs changing. Often Not a tricky diy job though.

Seals can wear leading to leaks.

Remind me not to buy used suspension from you 🙂

they may look fine on the outside…

inside maybe a different story….

^^ Ouch!

Yes they do need servicing – maybe not quite as often as the manufacturers would lead you to believe but they do need it…

Cheers

Danny B

They definitely need servicing in the long run. I am sceptical about the manufacturers service times though. If I serviced mine as often as Rockshox recommend, it’d cost me a fortune and be a total PITA.

Edit: beaten to it by Danny

Had TF Tuned do a full service on a RP23 and a set of 426 revelations in the past.

Best money I ever spent, bother were bought second hand and after the service the difference in the feel was incredible. Tracked a lot better and generally felt a lot nicer.

Will be doing it again as soon as I have the money.

Tim Flooks made a dramatic difference to my old Bombers.

From forum surfing, it would appear that FOX & RS forks need lots of servicing.

My old open bath chunky bombers don’t need any where near as much attention as these new fangled superlight weight offerings.

I’ve a set of Fox forks that are five years old and never serviced. Its never even occured to me that they might need a service.

I occasionally put air in them (when they feel a bit soft), and they still bounce up and down quite freely.

What sort of difference could I expect if I got them serviced?

I occasionally put air in them (when they feel a bit soft), and they still bounce up and down quite freely.

What sort of difference could I expect if I got them serviced?

The difference was incredible when I first got my old 426′ serviced. Felt a lot more supple, tracked the ground nicely and I could actually feel the trail I was riding over. Rather than just taking the big hit they were damping more effectively, just felt really nice. Hard to explain really.

Im not convinced. Obviously lowers servicing on a fork prolongs the stanchion life but a full service is expensive

An annual rear shock service every year for 3 years is almost the price of a new shock every 3 years

I know we are all cynical about the MTB industry and the service intervals, but if they said service every 2 years, we’d only do it every 5!

My experience:

Fox & RS (air) = very needy, demanding constant attention.
Will run dry and eat the stanchions within 6 months unless you’re dropping the lowers and changing oil every couple of months or so.

Marzocchi (ti coil) = would probably run forever without much attention but I still drop the lowers, clean the seals and change the oil every year or so.

[edit] I’ve not bothered with rear shocks other than DU bushes and a few drops of 90wt gear oil in the air can. Just buy a spare whenever CRC have a good sale on. RP23BV for about £130 new IIRC sounded a better option than servicing one.[/edit]

@ Greeble’s Pic

OM-MF-G!

showa stantion wear by Loco Tuning, on Flickr

Motorcyle forks suffer for wear too 😉

I’m starting to get a bit of stanchion wear on a set of Fox 36 RC2s (coil)

it was initially just behind the coil leg lower (i.e. where you couldnt see it)

I cleaned out the foam rings and serviced the lowers but now its starting to show on the other stantion too (very faintly)

I should change the seals and rings at some point – but if oil isnt leaking out and they feel supple, do I really need to change the CSU?

I just got my forks and shock back from LoCo a couple of weeks ago and the difference is stunning. My bike has never felt better, so it’s a resounding YES from me.

I recently did a wiper seal/foam ring replacement and lower service myself on my ~18 month old fox 32’s

For no other reason than the service interval was quite a long way past….

wasnt anywhere near the recomended amount of oil in the lowers as Fox recomend (i.e. virtually none) feel “better” for it and not a difficult job really.

after this I have decided I will fall on the side of, do a lower oil change/service, open the rear can and visual check/clean myself every 6 months ish and not worry about sending away for a “proper” job and the money I save can go towards new forks/shocks as probably the cheapest way.

i.e. keep an eye out for deals (also picked up the CRC £130 rp23 bv deal so my old rp2 is now effectivley a spare as nothing was wrong with it)

Yes and No

I agree with those who say not as often as manufactures say. My 36’s get done once a year and the stanchions are fine (although I do make an effort to actually clean my bike). Rear shock probably about the same…or in the case of my DHX Air, whenever it started leaking!

My forks felt loads nicer when they cane back this time. Depending in your forks, you can do it yourself to save some pennies. My old Marzocchi’s are well easy to service at home. My 36’s are doable bit because they’re the early version if the RC2 cartridge there are some silly rubber bladders that news filling and bleeding and I’m a tad lazy.

Yes attention is needed more for forks than shocks
No not as often as suggested
Changing the oil in the lowers is a waste of tim on Fox if you dont give some thought to the foam “Oilers”

Car analogy is goodun. Oil shares over time with use and needs changing. Often Not a tricky diy job though.

I must confess I have never serviced the shocks on any of my cars… will I die?

I think mindmap has a very good point – I clean and Fork Juice my stanchions after every ride even if I clean nothing else.

May as well keep as much crap as possible out of the system…

Cheers

Danny B

I must confess I have never serviced the shocks on any of my cars… will I die?

horribly.

Still, cars have shocks not forks so the shaft doesn’t take as much sideways loading and everything lasts a bit longer. Having said that I’m not exactly regular with my suspension servicing, as noted the manufacturer intervals are a bit prohibitive. Also depends on the fork, a pair of 66s is easy peasy to diy but less fun are rs forks…

Incidentally shared was meant to say degraded. Bloody auto correct.

Incidentally shared was meant to say degraded. Bloody auto correct.

Read it as sheared, as in the chains of molecules in the oil were sheared causing the degredation of the oil and reduction in it’s efficientcy 😉

Mine are well looked after to extend service intervals.

However, they’re like gear cables. You don’t notice them getting worse, you just notice them being so much better when recently sorted.

I just put in new seals and clean up when needed. This has been once in 3 years for RS SIDs, twice in 7 years for RS Pikes and never for Fox Float shocks until I got a 2012 Kashima RP23 which has felt awful twice in a year, which isn’t acceptable.

Occasionally I put some teflon lube round the seals but I don’t actively do much to my forks. I ride a lot too.

I did wear out some stanchions on some Lyriks but they had a huge gouge in the stanchion from a rock getting stuck behind the arch and dirt just kept getting in there.

RicB – Member
Im not convinced. Obviously lowers servicing on a fork prolongs the stanchion life but a full service is expensive

Do it yourself then. None of them are massively complicated and there and guides all over the interweb to guide you through

Its the slow degradation that will lead you to thinking your forks are fine. Then you get them serviced and you realise how good they were supposed to feel.

First time I got my Revs done they came back with more small bump sensitively and compression damping seemed smoother too and much less notchy.

Its the slow degradation that will lead you to thinking your forks are fine. Then you get them serviced and you realise how good they were supposed to feel.

Bingo.

On another note, my shop experience says that most people have their suspension set up that badly, even if stuff is trashed, servicing wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference. But that’s the beauty of getting servicing done by a pro, pro setup.

Legend- I do do it myself but the OP was specifically referring to value for money if he pays someone to do it for him

Enduro forks seals are the best thing I’ve ever bought in terms of increasing component lifespan. My 2008 fox forks are serviced twice a year and the old oil always looks like new.

I must confess I have never serviced the shocks on any of my cars… will I die?

Probably, most likely of old age.

The differnce with cars is weight isn’t an issue so they use much larger oil volumes and you don’t really expect much performance from your car, if you’re not feeling seasick the handlings probably acceptable. If you took a rally car off road it’d probably need serviceing as often as your MTB.

Forks I DIY though they’re easy, shocks get sent away when I blow them up (averageing 6 months!).

Never changed the oil in my car since I’ve had it 150,000 miles later…. I’d get my forks serviced though lol

I prefer to sell them on eBay whenever a deal on new ones comes about, made £30 swapping the 2 year old 32’s for new rev’s

Yep I did this once, but unfortunately Rock Shox stopped doing the Rev with a 20mm axle and stopped doing the black box motion control. Not been tempted to get rid in the slightest.

but the new Pike has got me wondering … (hurry up Merlin and get some OEM stock for silly prices) 🙂