Bilstein strut FAILURE!

[m3saloon]

I bought a set of 2 front struts and 2 rear shocks from an Ebay Bilstein seller, (lifetime warentee remember).. well ive had no problems for about a year. well i was driving down a normal road when i herd a klunk going over a small bump. i was like wtf is that ccrap? not too bothered by it i kept going.. it got loulder so i pulled over, removed the plastic cap to the mount to find that the nut that holds the strut into the mount has blown off the top of the strut. wicked pissed i call bilstein HQ, they say that this is not ever found in a daily driver, but only on a few tracked cars, *where the suspention would fully extend quickly* they said NO problem on the warentee but i would hafto go back throught the ebay seller.. well ya right. its not even worth being with out my car for another dam mounth because i would hafto send it back and wate for another one.... complete b/s

SOOO if anyone would happen to have a Right front Bilstein M3 strut that is still new or with only 3K ish miles on it let me know.. thanks!

[Fair]

Nut was blown off the top of the strut? It came loose and fell off or... ?

[m3saloon]

it did not come undone, the threads were completly missing from the strut, the nut was in sence pulled off the top of the strut.. For the time being i've sanded and re threaded with a size samller nut, but i would like to just replace the strut. i'm guessing there was problem with the mold or maybe a bad batch of metal?
i had a few pics just incase i had to send to bilstein, but i deleted them because they would take care of it.. but its really not worth the agravation of getting it warenteed.

[synthply]

maybe it was over-torqued ??????

[Mill-town]

my guy has a front pair if your interested

[Turbo331is]

Does the top of your strut look like these below? If so, its a common problem with Bilsteins that is rarely talked about. When I called, speaking to Jack specifically, he said its very common and the only good fix is replacing it. Mine happened at about 30mph. Another Porsche guy had his break at over 100 on the track. I try my hardest to not own any more Bilsteins.

As to what causes it, I could get no real answers. The best I could find is that the Bilstein struts are inverted and have no built in bump stops (or very weak ones at that). When your shock is close to being blown (little compression) and you hit a bump, the shock bottoms out sending an infinite amount of force through the upper and lower mounts typically causing the welded uppers to crack.




And this was the result

[m3saloon]

holy crap man, look at that brake dust, and man what are you alignment specs!? j/k, but seriously that looks horrable, this did not happen to me, well not to that extent anyways. my wheel was lose because the strut was just bouncing around in the mount and if it wasnt for the weight of the car holding the spring down it woul've mostlikely looked like yours. as for struts in my experance bilstein has been the best, but this for me is a total first.