[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by vtecblast

Sad to hear about this. Glad that I read it before ordering one for my Scorpio.
I was quite convinced that ARC suspension would improve the ride quality of my Scorpio. But, if this is how they are dealing with their customer's problems I'm better off away from this brand. As you said, there might be many happy customers but I'm not willing to take the risk of becoming an unsatisfied one.

The biggest issue faced is the lack of support locally. Since the seller is in a different location, it is impossible physically have a look or do analysis if there is any problem. With OEM or known reputed aftermarket, if you face issue, you can go to the service center or the garage where you got them fit and show them the problem. Not to mention you do not have to pay them to have a look if the product is newly or recently installed.

In my case, I spent around 4000 rupees just on the labor costs at various FNG and HASS to install, remove multiple times.

Originally Posted by humyum

What an ordeal. I think you gave them too much leeway and yourself too much of torture before you removed them replaced them with new OEM ones.
.

In hindsight, I agree I gave them too much leeway and was patient for more than the threshold before I removed them for good. But I had no choice because I had paid so much for the product. If it was some other easily available ones like Monroe, TRW etc, I would have just thrown them out and gone back to oem since they are cheap and I would have not felt the pinch. But here, I paid 15300 rupees. Hence throwing them out due to the problem was not really an option for me and I had to figure out some way around!

I didn't go with Rogerab mainly because the shocks where anyway due for replacement hence wanted to try something stiffer to improve the ride and handling. Also the Rogerab mainly helps in improving the ground clearance and not much on handling is what I read from multiple reviews.
Anyway I have got the stiffer springs. Will get them installed coming week.

[deepak_bajaj]

Very frustrating to hear and more frustrating that two members have experienced the same issue. This callous attitude of the owner should not be tolerated and we, as a group, should shame the company publicly in the forum so that other members as well as forum user and general public are aware of such fraudulent companies and owners and their poor customer service.

This is straight case of cheating. Selling a defective product and then sit tight. Such people and companies should be taught a lesson.

To the member's I would say that treat this as am "Experience Expense" and move on. It's easy said than done but that's the only way.

[ValuableRecluse]

I was about to order a pair of rear dampers for my 2017 Fortuner. ARC’s favourable YouTube reviews had me convinced.
Thanks for sharing your experience in detail. I think I’ll stick to stock for now and probably look towards Aussie brands like ARB and Ironman.

[speedracer05]

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki

Anyway I have got the stiffer springs. Will get them installed coming week.

@OP I thought just changing the spring to stiffer ones will make the car more bouncy as OEM shocks will not be damp enough. I am curious to know how the stiffer springs turned out, please share an update

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by speedracer05

@OP I thought just changing the spring to stiffer ones will make the car more bouncy as OEM shocks will not be damp enough. I am curious to know how the stiffer springs turned out, please share an update

Well, the stiffer springs did work out well. Especially at the front end wherein the GC increased by 10mm over stock. The rear has a marginal increase of around 3mm. Body roll has reduced. Handling has improved by a good margin. I changed the front shocks to Monroe and they are kind of better than OEM. They are holding up the stiffer springs well. The rear shocks are OEM and I feel they are also able to handle the stiffer springs. Worst case the rear might start leaking, in which case, I will look for better options, maybe KYB.

Best part is the added GC which allows me to tackle bad roads better. Lesser underbody hits.

[FortunerTRD]

Sad to hear the above experience.

I had a different experience and thought I’d share it as well.

Had seen the YouTube video of the XUV 500 gliding over an uneven field so was intrigued and checked all the videos. Got the Front and back for my earlier 2010 Scorpio VLX. Paid around ₹28,000 if I remember correctly. The driving experience was totally different t and my mechanic was shocked to see the improvement post fitting.
Sold the Scorpio soon after though and the new owner got the shocks too with hardly 8,000 kilometres done with them. Lucky him.

When I got the Fortuner type 2 first thing I did was to install the ARC shock absorbers. The foreign ones were too expensive to try for me.
Again the difference in riding quality was and is super and people who travel as passengers feel the change.
Doing three main changes after installation.
1. Negligible nose dive on hard braking compared to OEM shocks.
2. Lesser body roll especially on bumpy roads and bumpy roads are aplenty in my city
3. Can go over bad patches without having to slow down much.
Only negative I found is that the cost is high compared to OEM. But the driving quality difference is substantial.
Sad to hear about the bad service that you received. I dealt with a gut called Rohit Pawar and he was pretty supportive in my case.
Thought I’d share my experience too. Thanks everyone.

[sgmuser]

Originally Posted by FortunerTRD

Sad to hear the above experience.

I had a different experience and thought I’d share it as well.

. I dealt with a gut called Rohit Pawar and he was pretty supportive in my case.
Thought I’d share my experience too. Thanks everyone.

See, here it's not about the product alone. But about how it was dealt when there was an issue. For us who are reading the bitter experience above, it is more important than a competent product. God sake this is the experience when the owner got involved himself. Imagine what it would be otherwise. I am sucker for local business support but equally sucker for high standards in reliability, support as well. I want moneys worth first then local business etc etc.

I considered arc for a while thanks to gto i found this thread.

Sadly Avo shocks are out of stock with the dealer in Coimbatore. So, we have to wait now. If anyone knows AVO stock availability pls pm. Thanks in advance.

[sagarpadaki]

I wanted to update this thread with a development.

Mr. Deepak Pawar, owner of ARC, contacted me in the month of January this year, after a gap of more than a year since my ordeal documented here. He explained that they have found the root cause of the noise and corrected it. The issue was the difference in length of their shock absorber which was around ~2 inches more compared to stock.

He wanted to send me a pair free of cost, stating that they have done thorough testing. I agreed. I received the redesigned product and got them fit end of April 2023 when I dropped my car for some repairs at the service center.


After driving for around 300 kms, I observed that the noise is not present under normal driving conditions. There was a definite improvement in ride quality. However, with full load of 4 people on broken roads, there was a mild metallic noise coming from the rear left shock absorber. The noise was loud enough to be noticed by the rear passengers. I gave this feedback to the Mr.Pawar and he was hesitant to acknowledge the noise saying they have done the testing. But the noise was present in the aforementioned driving condition. He said he will contact me later and ask one of his local franchisees to contact me to check on the noise. But I did not receive any follow-up call or communication from him. I did not follow-up again.


After that I have driven the car for around 1000 kms and on the performance front, there is definitely improvement. High speed stability is 30-40% better than stock and the car feels taut over undulations at high speeds even on full load. At Low speeds, less than 40 kmph, I did not notice any difference compared to stock in the area of body roll. Maybe these dampers are tuned for high-speed stability more than the low-speed comfort.

I appreciate the owner of the ARC to put effort on redesign the shock absorbers and send them to me. However, there is lot to be desired for in terms of their R&D and testing of the product. They need to focus on testing their product thoroughly under all possible conditions and all possible loads on the vehicle and in different road conditions, which I found lacking. Otherwise, they would have definitely caught the noise that I noticed in around 300 kms of driving over bad roads in full load. Maybe for many cars their shock absorbers fit like a glove and work as intended. But, for me it has been a mixed experience.

After this experience, I have gained great respect for OEM's who design the shock absorbers and reputed aftermarket brands like Bilstein, Avo, Tein who ensure that their products work irrespective of conditions.