GM MagneRide Suspension

[BravoXray]

Recently I bought a 2019 Suburban Premier, and one of the options it hasit the Max Towing package. From the beginning I thought the ride was on the rough side, but I figured it was the the air suspension/ shocks. One day I stopped at the local Chevy dealer and asked about it and they looked up the VIN# and said it also had the MagneRide active suspension, and that was probably the cause of the rough ride. They quoted $4800 to replace the front struts and rear shocks!
I did some searching on the internet and found a company in Saskatchewan, Canada, that makes a system to replace the shocks and struts with standard Delco units and an electronic device that piggybacks on the ODB port that fools the system into thinking the MagneRide parts are still present. So I purchased the kit and received it via UPS last Friday. I had my local alignment shop install it and the got it done today. Now, instead of riding like a log wagon, it rides like a Suburban should, which is really smooth.
So, if you have a GM product that has a malfunctioning MagneRide system, give the Magdelete.com site a visit. The kit with the air shocks and struts and the electronic device was ~$1300 USD, a whole lot easier to swallow than $4800.

MagneRide - Wikipedia

 

[LightningCamaroGuy]

What was causing your MRC to malfunction? I had a 2019 Camaro SS 1LE and found the MRC to be amazing. That car handled like it was on rails, while offering one of the best highway rides I've ever experienced. I've never ridden in a more comfortable riding car, that came anywhere close to being as composed and flat cornering in a hard turn. It's amazing how a car that stiffly sprung, could soak up road imperfections so well. That car road more comfortably than my wifes old 13 Taurus SEL, and that was a nice riding car in its on rights.

 

[Dan Hunter]

LCG,

That's a nice ride. I was pushing my wife's Caddillac CTS coupe hard heading west up the canyon to Estes park. I could feel the rear end load up and walk right before it broke loose. A ZL 1 1LE went around me like I had the park brake on and disappeared.

We sold the thing and bought her a C7 Z51. Still not a match but what a brute.

 

[BravoXray]

What was causing your MRC to malfunction? I had a 2019 Camaro SS 1LE and found the MRC to be amazing. That car handled like it was on rails, while offering one of the best highway rides I've ever experienced. I've never ridden in a more comfortable riding car, that came anywhere close to being as composed and flat cornering in a hard turn. It's amazing how a car that stiffly sprung, could soak up road imperfections so well. That car road more comfortably than my wifes old 13 Taurus SEL, and that was a nice riding car in its on rights.

When I had it checked at the Chevy dealer, they said all the shocks and struts were bad, wore out or malfunctioning. It never triggered a code in the suspension system, so no light ever came on in the dash. Since I had the delete kit and standard shocks and struts installed, it rides as well as or better than my Town Car did.
From what I read, the electronic control valves in the units stick and default to fully closed causing the rough ride. If they were priced more reasonably, I might have replaced them, but at $800-$900 apiece, I went back to standard units.

 

[not2old]

You scared me with those prices. I thought my CTS-V had similar shocks and struts. I just checked with Rock Auto and the price for all four would come to $2200.00 Canadian, which would be about $1500 US. I wouldn't hesitate to pay that as the car rides and handles great. On your Suburban changing everything is OK if you are happy with the results.

 

[LightningCamaroGuy]

LCG,

That's a nice ride. I was pushing my wife's Caddillac CTS coupe hard heading west up the canyon to Estes park. I could feel the rear end load up and walk right before it broke loose. A ZL 1 1LE went around me like I had the park brake on and disappeared.

We sold the thing and bought her a C7 Z51. Still not a match but what a brute.

You've got to be really hardcore to want to ride around in a ZLE. Extremely capable track car, but you can't name too many other OEM cars that have been sold with a stiffer setup. I'd rather daily a 00 CobraR. A SS 1LE is basically a regular ZL1 with a SS engine, and .5" smaller front brake rotors. Still the SLE gets you the ZL1's 9.9", eLSD rearend, (8.6", torsion diff rearend for regular SS) and most of it's chassis/suspension components, and even the ZL1 gas tank and fuel pump, but with 140 lbs less weight up front, and about 200 less HP.

The ZL1 uses MRC, but the ZLE uses a Multimatic shock setup. While extremely capable suspension, so is a well setup MRC. Multimatic shock vehicles are ones like the 17+ Ford GT, GEN6 ZL1 1LE, Colorado and Silverado ZR2, (and any GMC equivalents) the new Mustang GTD. The ZLE's seams to be the only one with a reputation for being overly harsh. While that's an impressive list of track vehicles, and O/R focused trucks, cars with MRC are ones like the C6 ZR1, and C6 Z06 Centennial, C7 Grand Sport/Z06/ZR1, C8 Z06, Mustang GT350R, 20-23 Mustang GT500, GEN5 Camaro ZL1, and Z28, GEN6 Camaro ZL1, and SS 1LE, new Mustang Dark Horse, and the outgoing Mach1. From my understanding the upcoming C8 ZR1 will have MRC as well, and I believe a few highend European brands have adopted the technology as well. So MRC is on some very capable cars as well, and on a car on a platform as capable as the GEN6 Camaros Alpha chassis I think Camaro could have stuck with MRC and gotten the same performance. The ZLE also uses R compounds and a bunch of areo, and other one off components. But yes a ZLE is a very capable track weapon Like any shock MRC can go bad, but generally speaking they aren't considered unreliable, but they are costly to replace when the fail. I loved MRC, but mine never gave me issues personally.

If you start watching this video at 7:40 you can see the difference in ride quality between a ZL1 and a ZL1 1LE.

 

[Dan Hunter]

Excellent points and by the way my ZR2 with DSSV units, regardless of it's height, it rides and tracks incredibly well. Coming out of Cripple Creek, I forgot to take the cruise control off. There's what I believe is a reducing radius turn and I fumbled to find the disengage on the cruise. It just rolled in flat and actually put the hammer down to maintain speed. DSSV units in a performance coupe must be mind altering.

 

[LightningCamaroGuy]

Excellent points and by the way my ZR2 with DSSV units, regardless of it's height, it rides and tracks incredibly well. Coming out of Cripple Creek, I forgot to take the cruise control off. There's what I believe is a reducing radius turn and I fumbled to find the disengage on the cruise. It just rolled in flat and actually put the hammer down to maintain speed. DSSV units in a performance coupe must be mind altering.

They definitely perform even though I've no experience with them personally in a performance car. One correction I need to make is the 14/15 Z/28 also uses Multimatic, and not MRC. I just learned this, and always thought they used MRC.

Here's a list of car with Multimatic dampers. The new GTD is a $300K that final assembly is done by Multimatic, and all the Canadians keep claiming that it's not American, but Canadian. Lol

DSSV Damping Technology

Multimatic Default Description.

www.multimatic.com