Two days ago ,i heard a noise from the front right wheel, as the mecanical told me i need to replace the shocks absorbers. My car is an s type v6 my 2001 . I have three options , oe shocks from the market? bilstein b4? or bilstein b6. Any help will be appreciate.

 

I noticed a rather annoying squeak from what seems to be the front left shock all the way home from work tonight. When I parked the car in my garage, I pushed down on the front left and it squeaked. Seems like it might be the shocks (original, I'm sure) so I'll look further when I get a chance. In the mean time, in preparation of a shock replacement, I'm looking for advice on install and on what shocks to get -- 2003 V6 S-Type.

 

Mine developed a squeak which could be heard when driving over bumps - and the shocks became "crashy". Figuring that both problems indicated worn shocks I replaced both with genuine Jaguar items and both problems are gone The price came out at $135 each and I fitted them myself in an afternoon.

 

I also change the front (xr811178) and the rear (xr811180) oem bilstein, with 406 euro and now the car is going fine.

 

Did you run into stuck lower bolt(with T60 head)? Mine didn't budge. Finally it turned but the lower bushing inner was stuck to the bolt and turns with it. I've cut the bolt just inside of the shock forks.

Now how to remove the shock assembly without taking out lower control arm?

 

The bolts on mine were fine but this is a dry, desert environment so that may help. They were not Torx head, either - 18mm conventional nut and bolt I think (maybe 18mm head and 21mm nut?

To remove them I released the shock top nut on the inner wing then jacked up the car, undid the anti-roll bar link (sway bar) and removed it. I then compressed the springs just a little with conventional spring compressors and released the bottom bolt.

Once the bottom of the shock dropped through the bottom arm, I could remove the spring (still compressed so be carefull) and then lifted out the shock. Refitting is the reverse of removal. The nice thing about doing it this way is that you use the weight of the car as a spring compressor and the normal spring compressors have little work to do

 

I think there is a little confusion because the early 2000-2002 cars have a different front suspension than the upgraded 2003-2008 models.

That's why the different shock mounting.
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Correct, newer front shock with fork bottom came around 2004MY. Why o'why did they change to forked bottom mount.

I may need to resort to compressing the springs before trying to remove the shock/spring assembly from the vehicle. Thanks for the tip. JTIS never mention about needing to compress spring to get the fork over the lower control arm before you can remove the assembly from vehicle.

 

Lots changed 2002.5MY (2003 US) to make the car have proper jag-like handling.

 

I'm a newbie. Was struggling to remove the shock/spring assembly due to lower shock fork getting hung up around the lower control arm. All I had to do was loosen the lower control arm bolt at subframe to allow it to rotate down further. Doh! (Am I dating myself here? ) note: Mark the control arm bolt orientation before loosening it. Rotational position controls the camber so you want to keep it rotated in the same direction when you tighten it back up.

Heads up on compressing the spring prior to replacing the shock - you need 2 pairs of spring compressors. First set to initially compress then second set to grab the coils further apart and compress. Remove the first set once second set starts to compress. This is due to close spacing of the coils which will trap the spring compressor grab hooks and won't let you compress further. The middle 75% of spring almost need to be touching coil on coil in order to release pressure on the shock top mount. One more thing, it will be easier to insert the spring compressor in pieces onto the coil then assemble, this due to close spacing of the spring coils. Take out the coil compressor the same way.

The lower shock bushing was pressed out with ball joint tool and impact wrench driving the ram screw. 30mm socket was a perfect fit once the rubber boot was removed from the bushing. New bushing was pressed in the same way - boot removed to press in, then boot put back on. New lower shock bolt purchased from dealer($3.25 each). Warped T60 torx bit used to remove that bolt made by Lisle replaced under warranty.

Finally getting the garage space back. Couldn't be soon enough as we had first snow yesterday.