Adjustable vs non adjustable X-Reas

I have a 2003 Toyata 4 runner 302000 miles,
It is at an AAA autoshop and needs the rear shock replaced- they said an X- REAS adjustable shock would cost $1809 for the part and $642 or an X-REAS non adjustable part. This is without labor! They said the only difference would be if I was pulling a trailer or had a heavy load the vehicle would sink lower and I would have a light on, on my dashboard (which I don't care about) I rarely use it for 4 wheel driving - maybe 2x a year. I want to pull a tear drop trailer in the future and I have a heavy bike rack. Any suggestions about which option is best. I don't have much time to replace the shock before a road trip in 4 days.

 

They are lying to you. XREAS is not adjustable for 2003, not that I have ever heard of. There is no light for XREAS either. What they are talking about for the adjustable part is the rear leveling air bags, which are separate from the XREAS system. If your 4Runner doesn't have rear airbags/leveling system, you obviously don't need the adjustable.

The better course of action is to eliminate the XREAS all together but it doesn't sound like you are in the situation currently to do that. Eliminating the XREAS is as simple as replacing it with standard, non-XREAS shocks. The XREAS system is stand-alone and you have to replace all 4 corners with non-XREAS parts. You can't just do one or 2, it must be all 4.

 

Thank you so much for your answer!! That really helped! They now say they aren't leaking so not urgent so I'm going to wait and get standard non- XREAS on all of them, but not with these guys!

 

You're more than welcome, I'm glad my information managed to save you time and money. When you are ready to do the swap to non-XREAS stuff, post up here again and we'd be happy to help. It's something I have done to my 2003 Limited as well and well worth doing to eliminate an aged and expensive suspension system.

 

See the suspension post linked in my sig when you’re ready to make the change. Info there should be helpful. Also, in case you’re curious about how X-REAS work, Toyota explains it . Truck in the video is a 5th Gen but the workings are identical.