Monroe Gas-Matic shocks?

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I will give it some time and see how they do. Monroe has a 90-day satisfaction guarantee so if I don't like the shocks I can get a refund. Any shock, or any other part can be bad right out of the box, or it can fail too soon or it can last a long time. You can go by reputation and online reviews but there really is no telling how good or bad any given part could be until you actually use it.

I did read a lot of great reviews on the Gas Matics before I made up my mind. There were some not so good and some bad reviews too, but a big majority of folks with trucks like mine posted good to excellent results with the Gas Matics. I also found some horror stories online about the other more expensive brands of shocks. I even read that the Gabriel Ultra is "too much shock" if you are not hauling heavy loads, towing and working the truck hard. That was the reason I did not buy a set of Gabriel Ultra's.

I don't tow or go off road and I don't do any heavy hauling either. I don't need the most expensive or the absolute best shocks that money can buy. These Gas Matics should be just fine. My truck rides great for now, much better than before and if there are problems later, I will take care of it. My wife likes the firmer ride too, much better than my old shocks, she says the truck is a lot easier on her back now. She has some vertebrae damage and was pretty sensitive to the rough ride I had with my old shocks.
 
It's true it could have been a manufacturing defect, or overloading on my part. For me it was the rear shocks that were particularly troublesome. I had some sort of cheap Monroe shock up front that was painted blue, and those never leaked like the yellow ones did. I had the yellow ones on the front of another Ranger and they were fine, but that truck rode like an oxcart anyway.

Anything is better than worn out shocks, and for the price I guess it's worth experimenting. I did that with buying tires last time and so far I don't regret it (90s looking Wrangler Radials). Cheap is hit or miss.
 
Well 01Ranger I have to say you are right. I should have listened to you and a few others who said do not buy the yellow Monroe Gas Matic shocks. They are OK shocks and they do provide a firm ride. The problem is now that I have driven on them a few days I can say without a doubt they are too firm. Stiff and harsh is a better description. Maybe it's just me but I do not like the ride quality from the Gas Matics.

So I have done even more reading and found that Monroe did an update on the Sensa-Trac truck shocks. Now they use a 5/8" piston rod. The Sensa Trac's that I had way back in 2007 had only a 1/2" piston rod. Maybe that is one reason I did not like them after putting only about 30K on them. The Sensa Trac is now supposed to be the equivalent of the Reflex, so that is why they discontinued the Reflex shock for my truck. There are a lot of good to great reviews on Sensa Trac's online too, probably more than the Gas Matics. After a while I got kind of tired of reading the reviews.

So tomorrow I will call my local Napa store and ask for a warranty exchange on my Reflex shocks for a new set of Sensa Tracs. If they give me any grief and say the Reflex shocks can not be warrantied for wear and tear, I have printed out the Monroe Warranty that plainly states they do cover normal wear and tear. I will try to edumacate them on the warranty terms but if they still refuse to warranty the shocks, well hopefully the Napa guy over in the next town 8 miles away will still be willing to honor the warranty for a set of Sensa Tracs for me. Or maybe the local AAP will do the exchange since AAP is a Monroe-Tenneco dealer too. I have reservations about asking AAP to handle a Napa warranty claim though.

I sure wish I had researched the new(er) Sensa Tracs before buying these Gas Matics. I also really should have paid more attention to what you and a few others told me about the yellow Monroe shocks. They are OK shocks, however they turned out to be not what I needed or expected. I also hope I can get a refund on the yellow Monroes at AAP. I paid with Pay Pal online so I have no idea how AAP handles a refund for online purchases. Maybe the Pay Pal site will have info on it.

I will listen better and pay more attention the next time I ask for parts advice here.
 
Originally Posted By: RF Overlord
Originally Posted By: doitmyself
Maybe Gabriels are the better choice after all.
I've always liked Gabriel shocks from back in high school (WAY too many years ago) so I bought them for my newly-acquired Mercury Grand Monkey as it has 120,000 on the originals. I don't think they were BAD per se, but the ride and handling do seem better with the new ones, although not by much. The rear shocks on this car are a huge PITA, and I haven't the ambition to launch that ship just yet so I'll have to wait to see if they make any further improvement.


Boy do I love auto correct!
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Jimmy, I have a set of Monroe Gas Matic yellow shocks on the front of my 94 Impala SS. They are the big yellow shocks that were then called Magnums and they changed the name to Gas Matic. They were advertised as being a 'severe service' shock for applications like ambulances, heavy duty trucks, and so on. When you first put them on, they feel very stiff and unyielding.Two reasons for this are: first is the sharp contrast with your old worn out shock that you just replaced is dramatic. Second thing to note is they will after a short break in period, feel firm without being too harsh. They are a great firm riding without the cost of a Bilstein shock.
 
Originally Posted By: Jimmy9190
So I have done even more reading and found that Monroe did an update on the Sensa-Trac truck shocks. Now they use a 5/8" piston rod. The Sensa Trac's that I had way back in 2007 had only a 1/2" piston rod. Maybe that is one reason I did not like them after putting only about 30K on them. The Sensa Trac is now supposed to be the equivalent of the Reflex, so that is why they discontinued the Reflex shock for my truck. There are a lot of good to great reviews on Sensa Trac's online too, probably more than the Gas Matics. After a while I got kind of tired of reading the reviews.


Jimmy, where did you find this update info? I wonder if this affects the "general impressions" that Monroes give a softer ride vs. KYB's.

I really can't find any good objective info regarding Monroe vs. KYB vs. Gabriel for my short wheelbase Caravan (no quick struts available either). GRRRRRRRR.
 
I read it in a post on www.dodgedakotas.com when I was searching for shock reviews last night. I don't know whether it is 100% true. I do know the Sensa Trac does have a 5/8" piston rod in it now, it is on the Monroe web site. The guy who wrote the post said he had called Monroe and they told him the update was done in 2011.
 
I completely understand wanting to try them out for yourself. The price is good, too good! I bought them a couple times before the blowout happened. If they rode too good, Sensa Tracs would be a harder sell. The harsh ride is probably intentional.

I had Sensa Tracs on my Explorer and they were good, no problems from them.
 
Today I called the local Napa store here in town, this is the same one where a couple weeks ago one of their guys told me they only warranty Reflex shocks for manufacturer's defects. This time I got hold of the woman who is the manager and I believe she may also be the owner of our little Napa store. It is small, not even as big as your average 7-11 store. She had to put me on hold for a bit but she came back and said "no problem, bring them in and we will exchange them for Sensa Trac's". The only question she asked was "do you still have the receipt?" I went down after work and picked up my new shocks. They had to keep the boxes from the Sensa Trac's to send the Reflex back for store credit, but that is no problem at all. I was and still am very grateful and thanked the manager/owner profusely for helping me out. I am also very grateful that Monroe has a no-hassle warranty and stands behind their products. It's not every day someone just hands you $200.00 worth of parts for free.

It is obvious there has been a redesign on these Sensa Trac shocks, the piston rod is most definitely bigger than what I remember from my previous set of Sensa Tracs. Both the front and rear shocks are also now larger and heavier than I remember and I know they are larger and heavier than the yellow Gas Matics. I would like to think the larger size indicates a better shock. The front Sensa Trac and front Reflex are the same size, I compared them at the Napa store. The rear Sensa Trac is just a shade smaller in diameter than the rear Reflex, but that may not be saying much because the rear Reflex shocks were huge, especially when compared to the Gas Matic shocks.

I also called AAP and they told me yes I can get a refund in the store with a Pay Pal online purchase, but they send it back to Pay Pal, just as they would do with a credit card. Then I can retrieve my refund from Pay Pal when it posts and move it back to my checking account. I believe the refund will be an easy process.

This has sure enough been a learning experience. I have finally learned that the cheapest part may not always be the best choice, even if it is a brand name part. I will install my new shocks tomorrow after work and I expect they will be much better than the Gas Matics. I will probably post an update here after the test drive.

Thanks to everyone who has offered me help and ideas on this. Thanks once again and many times over to Napa and Monroe for the warranty assistance today.
 
Thanks goes out to you for providing some good information, especially the upgrades to the Sensa Trac line and the warranty information.

With AAP discount codes and the on going buy 3/get 1 free deal, I am being gently nudged to try the Monroes.
 
Well here is my update for today...I put the Sensa Trac shocks on today after work. The test drive went very well, even though it was raining. The ride quality is a night and day difference from the Gas Matics. With the new Sensa Trac shocks the ride is nice and smooth on flat smooth road surfaces, yet it is still firm. It feels a lot more like a new vehicle ride quality. When I drove over rough roads and bumpy areas, the ride felt more stiff. I could almost "feel" the shock reacting to the bad road surface, and it still kept the firm ride quality. The SensaTrac shocks adjust as you drive and they help provide a smooth firm ride but they also toughen up when needed. If I remember it right, my old Reflex shocks had these same properties and ride characteristics.

I can say without a doubt the new Sensa Trac is definitely better than the old pre-2011 version. With the AAP discounts and the rebate for the price of one shock from Monroe, they are an excellent choice for a good quality shock. My truck is 12 years old and has nearly 152,000 miles on it. I understand it is an old pickup truck and it is not going to ride like a Lexus, however the firm ride quality is what I was after when I decided to replace my old Reflex shocks. After 70,000 miles they had become pretty soft. The Sensa Trac shocks give the ride I want without being too firm or harsh. The Gas Matics rode like a brick. I did not like them very much.

I stopped at AAP on my test drive, and they very cheerfully gave me a refund on the Gas Matics, no questions asked. It went back to my Pay Pal account and Pay Pal has already emailed me they received the refund and they will email me when the funds are available. I am glad that went so well.

I took a few pics of the different shocks today too. In this pic of one of the front shocks you can clearly see the larger diameter of both the body of the shock and the piston rod of the Sensa Trac as compared to the Gas Matic. The Sensa Trac was also much heavier.

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Another pic of the same features:

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This pic of the rear shocks shows the larger diameter of the Sensa Trac shocks. The rear Sensa Trac shock was also much heavier than the Gas Matic:

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Same image, further away:

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I am not really sure why I did it but I took a pic of one of the new rear shocks installed on my truck:

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I am glad my shocking experience is over. If anyone is considering Monroe shocks but has reservations about the Sensa Trac, my advice would be to call Monroe and ask if your application is one of the updated versions. There is a big difference in the Sensa Tracs I bought back in 2006 and these new ones. I wish I had known that before I bought the Gas Matics and went through all of this trouble, but it all worked out fine in the end and I learned a few lessons from it. Maybe this post will help out others who are looking for real-world info on shocks too.

Thanks to everyone who helped me on this.
 
Jimmy9190, the undersides of your Dakota is very clean for a 12 year old, 150,000 mile truck. Pretty obvious you're not in the rust belt.
 
Thanks. We have no real rust problems here where I live in Central Florida. If you live closer to the beach you can get rust on just about anything that sits outside. My truck has just a few spots where it gets minor surface rust and the brake rotors have rust on the hats and vanes, but it is not too much of a problem here. I am the third owner of my truck, but it has been in Florida all of its life.

I have put a few miles on my new Sensa Trac shocks now, on several different types of road surfaces and am very pleased with the way the truck rides. It is still firm like a new truck, it handles bumpy roads very well yet rides very smoothly on normal road surfaces. The very best thing about it is I got these new Sensa Trac shocks for free under the Monroe lifetime warranty exchange. It is very good to see a company that stands behind its products like that.
 
Well they were OK but after I drove on them a while they really started providing a mushy ride that was too soft. I think my truck is just too heavy for the valving on the Sensa-Trac. They were just OK but I wanted a better ride quality. The store manager at the local AAP was very helpful and she let me return the Sensa-Tracs for a full store credit even though they had come from the Napa store. I then paid the difference and she ordered me a set of Rancho RS5000. I rode on those for a while but they were way too stiff. My wife has back problems to begin with and the Rancho's made it worse. I didn't like the ride either so I bought a set of Gabriel Pro-Guards at AZ for $80.00 after I got them to accept a $20.00 Pep Boys coupon.

The Gabriels are better. They are much more like an OEM ride quality, not too stiff, not too soft either. I still have a somewhat bouncy ride quality sometimes, depending on the quality of the road on which I am driving. I have checked my coil springs and leaf springs and can not find anything wrong with that or anything else in the suspension. I may try the Gabriel Ultra on my next set of shocks.

The new design Sensa Trac is a good shock and is much better than the ones I used a few years ago. I am sure on some vehicles they will do fine but I just did not like the ride quality after I put a few miles on them. They don't get many good reviews from other Dakota owners, either. If they still made the Monroe Reflex for a 2 wheel drive Dakota I would use them. I have had a very hard time finding a shock that is as good as the Reflex.
 
Jimmy thanks for taking the time to share all this information.

When you say mushy ride can you please go into more detail?
I ask because I am looking for the softest riding shocks I can find for a 75 C-10 short bed.


Thanks Ron.
 
The Sensa Trac was just real bouncy, more than an OEM shock type ride. The ride quality was really soft, kimd of like driving a big old couch down the road. It felt much softer than OEM and a whole lot softer than the Reflex shocks and I just did not like how the shocks felt after about ten days of driving on them.

If you need a real soft quality shock the Sensa Trac may do the trick. I think there is a 90 day ride quality guarantee if you do not like them so you can exchange them or get a refund.
 
Jimmy9190 thank you very much for the reply.

Guess I will try a set of Sensa Tracs when the weather warms up a little.
 
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