Just tossing in my 2 cents. Have had the Dobinson IMS and UCA's for about 6 months now on my 2011 LX. It's definitely stiffer than the AHC was, but never harsh. I have not had an opportunity to do any proper off roading beyond the crappy roads, but will be taking it on a long road trip next month next Montana. I can't compare to a Land Cruiser with KDSS, but I have no complaints at all.
Dobinsons MRA vs OME BP-51 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter DesertLC09
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2011
- Threads
- 11
- Messages
- 413
- Location
- Namibe, Angola
- Website
- www.thisglobaljourney.com
So, I have had 2 sets of BP-51’s on my 200. Great valving and ride, but a pain in the butt to adjust. The rear shock guards were poorly installed by the sales company in South Africa, and the shaft ended up getting peppered by stones causing oil leakage over a period of time. They wouldn’t send me new clips either. I had to complain to ARB OZ and they sent them to me at no cost to me, but the damage was done. As they were out of “warranty”, they wouldn’t cover the damage to the shaft, and said there was no point rebuilding them as the shaft was the most expensive part. I ended up buying new rears as my fronts were still good. Fast forward a year, and I needed to replace the spherical bushings on the fronts. The bottoms were easy. Tops were a PITA. Took the cruiser to a mechanic in Windhoek, Namibia (2 day drive south), and he couldn’t do it. Took them to the sales/install people in Windhoek, they saw that the coil spring was broken up top. Said it was my fault, and wouldn’t be taken care of by ARB… So, as I have 1 yr old shocks out back, I bought my VERY LAST PAIR of OME shocks EVER, and put them up front. I’ll never do OME again on any of my cruisers.
I do a lot of off-road travel, while towing a caravan. I’m regularly in the bush twice a month and would love to have easy to adjust by-pass shocks that can be rebuilt somewhere like Windhoek at a bike/motorcycle or engineering shop with a rebuild kit. I’m leaning towards the Terrain Tamer adjustable pro’s, but reading about the Dobinson’s here has piqued my interest. Are the Dobinson’s rebuildable at home or an engineering shop, or are they like King’s and BP-51’s where you ship them off to someone?
I also have aftermarket UCA’s. Bought SPC’s when they were the only real option out there. I’ll swop them out when I bail on the OME’s too. Too much maintenance for adjustability I don’t need. I only run 285/70R17’s. I will say that having the extra caster is nice. Keeps everything handling well.
I do a lot of off-road travel, while towing a caravan. I’m regularly in the bush twice a month and would love to have easy to adjust by-pass shocks that can be rebuilt somewhere like Windhoek at a bike/motorcycle or engineering shop with a rebuild kit. I’m leaning towards the Terrain Tamer adjustable pro’s, but reading about the Dobinson’s here has piqued my interest. Are the Dobinson’s rebuildable at home or an engineering shop, or are they like King’s and BP-51’s where you ship them off to someone?
I also have aftermarket UCA’s. Bought SPC’s when they were the only real option out there. I’ll swop them out when I bail on the OME’s too. Too much maintenance for adjustability I don’t need. I only run 285/70R17’s. I will say that having the extra caster is nice. Keeps everything handling well.
The Dobinsons are rebuildable at home. That said, I’ve got about 90,000 miles on my MRR and they feel exactly like they did the day I bought them.
