Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

Hello all. Thank you for having this fabtastic source of info and letting me part of it. I am a proud owner of a Gen 4 LWB. Since last year it started feeling a bit loose on the road, mostly on the bitumen, very floaty and with a mix of roll/yaw mostly when changing lanes. Changed the original shockas that had 150k km with Bilsteins and although better, it's not 100% what it used to feel like, like Pajeros drive. Taken it to priveta mechanics and dealer, everything is perfect with the steering and all other componets. Dealer says Bilsteins are too hard for Pajeros that's why the car is floaty. Just spent R11000 on my Bilsteins hoping to get my Pajero feel back, hope didn't throw money away.

Has anyone had a similar issue? Appreciate the feedbacks, love the Pajero and don't want it to disappoint me.

Kind regards

(IMHO), there are no better shocks than Bilstein available, anywhere, so I would not worry too much about that statement.

Have you changed tyres?
Try experimenting with tyre pressures (higher / lower).

The problem seams to be less intense when tyre pressure above 2.0, but that's not always posible when driving on gravel. Front tyres are quite worn though, will try fitting new one and see what happens. Thanks or the reply.

when you fit new ones, have the alignment checked. Ask the technician to inspect play in the steering and suspension components and bushes.

Hi,

I had a similar problem and in my case worn tyres caused the problem. The tyres was Cooper STT's Mud terrains, which has gradually worn unevenly. Interesting enough I asked a few opinions and got the following answers:

- Tyre salesman at reputable tyre franchise said tyres needed replacement, even though they had quite a bit of tread left. According to him the uneven tread wear caused cavitation or something, resulting in the unstable behaviour on tar at certain speeds. In retrospect this ended up being good advice

- Secondly I took the vehicle back to a alignment specialist, well known in Cape Town 4x4 circles. They fitted OME shocks and coils about 40 000 km ago. The specialist recommended I take medium shocks and coils, but I insisted on heavy duty for some reason. When he went for a drive with me, he initially said the shocks felt fine during town driving. When he felt the instability at highway speed he was surprised and said the shocks are done and definitely needed replacement. He commented that the vehicle felt dangerously unstable at a certain speeds.

- Because the OME shocks were still under the 2 year guarantee period (but just over 40 000 km, or was it the other way around ?), I contacted the distributers and explained my situation. They were puzzled and said OME often did 150k km + without problems. They offered to inspect my vehicle and in case of a leak or something similar to replace the shock free of charge. I took the vehicle to their alignment specialist at their Cape Town franchise. No visible oil leaks etc. The technician commented that the reason for my problem was the heavy duty shocks with insufficient weight added to the vehicle. According to him, this caused the shock not to travel the appropriate distance, causing play on the mounting bushes or something along those lines. His solution was to change back to medium coils and replace all four shocks. OME offered discount, but the exercise would still have cost me a pretty penny.

I still wasn't convinced and eventually replaced my tyres with Hankook Dynapro AT's when the STT's tread finally wore out. Problem solved.

So back to the Bilstein's - they may offer a firmer ride on certain surfaces and who know's may even be less forgiving on incorrect tyre wear. However they're most probably not the cause of your problem.

As far as diagnosis goes, perhaps do a quick wheel swop test with one of the forum members. I your tyres need replacement anyhow, maybe that should be your starting point (and hopefully your solution.)

Let us know what happens!

Following the latest advice, I have changed the tyres and put new BFG ATs on the Paj. I know is not the most beloved tyre in SA but I have been driving on them for many kms and never had any issue. The car feels better, although I haven't been able to really take it for a true test drive. Doing Etosha, Namaraland and the Namib in the next 2 weeks. Will report back after the long drive. Hopefully the Paj is back to it's old self. Thanks a million for the support, this site rocks and will try to repay the advices where I can.

Josef

Contrary to a lot of opinions I have also never had issues with BFG, except the price. I think you will enjoy them in the Namibian environment.

CATS

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