When one daily drives and have a feel for the car, one knows fairly quickly when something seems to wear. Especially when you need to turn the adjuster every couple of months to bring the shock back in range.
Upon removal I noticed one of the shocks is worn enough that I can pull it out by hand relatively easy.
The QA1 shocks on the rear axle were installed in the same year as the fronts, but I've only had to 'up' them one or two clicks over time.
The design of the QA1 shock, and also the Viking dual adjustables seem quite a bit beefier than the thin Hotchkis/Fox shock.
Sounds like you had a dead shock. I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I've got the same Foxes on both of my race cars from when we first were developing them 10 years ago. one set has 25000 miles on them, still dyno'd perfect.
The materials and construction of the QA1's and Vikings are of a significantly lesser quality than the Fox units. QA1 and Viking are the same(ish) company. The daughter of QA-1 and her husband stole the proprietary information and suppliers from QA-1 and formed their own company, Viking. The bodies and internals are built off of their coil over line which is the same valve pack for any/every vehicle. Doesn't matter if its a C-10, a mustang or a Mopar, same pack, same SUPER wide range of adjustment. The Fox units from Hotchkis are custom tuned to the application at a given weight and spring rate, with fine adjustment in a specific range.
