Are evo King 2.0 spec worth it?

I'd have to agree with this ^^^^ or at least, to the extent that if you're gonna pay that much for a set of shocks, you might as well run coilovers. IF the idea is to stick with shocks and coils, I think the cost of having them rebuilt LIKE THEY REALLY NEED TO BE ON A REGULAR BASIS needs to be taken into consideration. Also, there can be a substantial amount of down time you'd need to expect when having them rebuilt. Of course, the upside to running just shocks as opposed to coilovers is that you could always run a cheap set of Rancho 5000's while your Kings are being serviced.

Yeah, king just quoted the rebuilds of my 2.5s for $125 per shock, plus shipping each way. That’s just about the cost of buying a set of ranchos. Cost aside they are a lot better than the ranchos when you are going fast. But $800 plus ever 30k is a big number to maintain them.


2015 JKUR AEV JK350
1985 CJ8 Scrambler
 
Here’s a picture of my 2.5 kings that survived 4 years of Midwest salt. They still functioned perfectly, just the steel body’s corroded a bit. I did clear them when I installed them, but never kept that up.

Fronts:

View attachment 352074




2015 JKUR AEV JK350
1985 CJ8 Scrambler

Actually that doesn’t look too bad. I expected to see a lot more corrosion than that.


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Actually that doesn’t look too bad. I expected to see a lot more corrosion than that.


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The rears we a bit worse, but not terrible. I should have grabbed a picture of them before I ship them off to King.


2015 JKUR AEV JK350
1985 CJ8 Scrambler
 
Yeah, king just quoted the rebuilds of my 2.5s for $125 per shock, plus shipping each way. That’s just about the cost of buying a set of ranchos. Cost aside they are a lot better than the ranchos when you are going fast. But $800 plus ever 30k is a big number to maintain them.

Mel likes to call Rancho makes, "disposable" shocks. They work well and when they don't, you just throw them away and replace them with another set, kind of like tires. Fortunately, I can rebuild and service my own coilovers and that does save on time and cost but honestly, I'd rather pay someone to do it. :crazyeyes:
 
Mel likes to call Rancho makes, "disposable" shocks. They work well and when they don't, you just throw them away and replace them with another set, kind of like tires. Fortunately, I can rebuild and service my own coilovers and that does save on time and cost but honestly, I'd rather pay someone to do it. :crazyeyes:

How hard is it really to rebuild these? I've watched several videos and it doesn't look very difficult - mainly messy and time consuming. And of course, if you mix up the shim stacks you're screwed. As long as you had the nitrogen setup and some time over the winter maybe it looks like it's pretty feasible to do them yourself?
 
How hard is it really to rebuild these? I've watched several videos and it doesn't look very difficult - mainly messy and time consuming. And of course, if you mix up the shim stacks you're screwed. As long as you had the nitrogen setup and some time over the winter maybe it looks like it's pretty feasible to do them yourself?

Yup, what you described is about it. Mainly just messy and time consuming. Also, you really want to use the special clamps that King sells to help protect the shafts and the body and they are far from cheap. Also, the oil is pretty pricey and assuming you're replacing seals and other worn out components and I can almost guarantee that you'll find them, you'll start getting closer to what it cost to have a shop do it for you. So really, what you save most on is time.
 
I love my Fox 2.5 Internally Bypassed Shocks. I run evo 4” plush springs on my jku. I dont have a speck of rust on my shocks and they see Idaho winters and they do salt the roads in Idaho. I have no complaints on Kings. However they will rust up quick. Hard Anodizing them will help but why pay foe that premium when you can get the fix shocks for less. Accutune can valve them for you if you need fine tuning. As for Kings, I have run them on my vehicles in the past. But personally I think the Fox product is a better made product. Thats just my opinion.


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Yup, what you described is about it. Mainly just messy and time consuming. Also, you really want to use the special clamps that King sells to help protect the shafts and the body and they are far from cheap. Also, the oil is pretty pricey and assuming you're replacing seals and other worn out components and I can almost guarantee that you'll find them, you'll start getting closer to what it cost to have a shop do it for you. So really, what you save most on is time.

I could be wrong but the big cost is having a shop remove them and tying up a lift until they are rebuilt. At least that was the case at ore. I’m debating about buying the stuff to rebuild mine this winter.


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I could be wrong but the big cost is having a shop remove them and tying up a lift until they are rebuilt. At least that was the case at ore. I’m debating about buying the stuff to rebuild mine this winter.

Buying all the stuff to get you setup is the expensive part. Once you have all the equipment, yeah, I would imagine that the biggest cost for a shop is tying up a rack.
 
Buying all the stuff to get you setup is the expensive part. Once you have all the equipment, yeah, I would imagine that the biggest cost for a shop is tying up a rack.

Other thing I was thinking of too is that with DTD the rebuild cost doubles compared to just a single in each corner. Makes rebuilding tools less expensive looking.

I have the bigger 3.0’s too. [emoji849]


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Other thing I was thinking of too is that with DTD the rebuild cost doubles compared to just a single in each corner. Makes rebuilding tools less expensive looking.

I have the bigger 3.0’s too. [emoji849]


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Damn $1000 for the rebuild plus the cost of shipping or fuel and time to drive them to So-Cal. 2 rebuilds and itll probably more than pay for itself.

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Other thing I was thinking of too is that with DTD the rebuild cost doubles compared to just a single in each corner. Makes rebuilding tools less expensive looking.

I have the bigger 3.0’s too. [emoji849]


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Yup. It’s the DTDs that got me going on doing it myself.


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