F-O-A vs. King, Fox, Bilstein Shocks

In this comparison we will evaluate the following areas of value enumerated below. We have ordered them with the first item being the biggest difference and the last item the least different between F-O-A and our competition.
1: Price
2. Warranty.
3: Shipping time.
4: Customer service.
5: Packaging and appearance.
6: Customization.
7: Performance.
8: Design & engineering.
9: Materials.

1. Price: F-O-A offers the best price by far, lower than any other manufacture, worldwide.

2. Warranty: No other manufacture comes close to our lifetime guarantee.

3. Shipping time: We have all parts in stock. In most cases your order will ship in 2 weeks, and many times we can do better.

4. Customer service: We give personalized customer service, you will talk to a real person, an expert in our products and our competitors as well. You will get the valving and the spring rates very close to your needs–we NEVER put your application into a pre made box/item. Every rig is different and your rig is our most important rig when we are building your shocks.

5. Packaging and appearance: F-O-A uses a generic white box with a black F-O-A, printed on the side of the box. We use paper fill and plastic bubble wrap to keep your shocks safe during shipping. One box per shock and then we often staple two boxes together. We have very few products damaged during shipping but there is the occasional scratch or two. Most other manufactures use very expensive custom-made boxes with foam inserts. Our cost for packaging a single shock is 6-7$. F-O-A doesn’t think adding another $20 to the price of each shock for a pretty package benefits our customer base.

6. Customization: Many times, a customer needs something special or different, we can often go the extra mile to get you what works best for your rig/ride. Talking with our tech’s well get you the answers and solutions that best fit your project.

7. Performance: This is where we think the difference between us and our competitors will be very similar, when you compare apples to apples. But at F-O-A, with our customer service, we believe we can better discover just what apple is best for you project. By listening closely to what you want we can get you the suspension that you envisioned. If we think a customer is heading in a wrong direction, we will offer them some other possible paths for them to consider. In the end, if the customer is happy, we will have done our job here at F-O-A.

8. Design& engineering: With the help/input from our customers, over the years F-O-A has made several design improvement’s that separate us from the competitors. Such as the 3- piece seal, the seal oil bypass, the longer shaft bushing, our double O-ring on all shock corners. We also offer Even Flow Pistons, and our Bypass shocks with valves that have never had a single failure. Our inhouse design team listens very carefully to our customers. Design tolerances are generally +.001″ and -.003″ for all machine parts. Every change that F-O-A has made over the years has come directly from listening to shock users.

9. Materials: Most of the materials are the same throughout our industry, we use ASTM 6061-T6 for our aluminum parts, we use ASTM 1026 SSID steel for the shock tubes, we use ASTM 1045 Hard chrome plated steel for the shafts, we use ASTM 1095 for valving. We use Grade 8 fasteners, zinc plated or 18-8 Stainless steel. We zinc or chrome plate our shock tubes, and our black anodized parts are for exterior use. We use Konlon brand spherical bearings, we have far more than 100K in service and never ONE failure, it is the best spherical bearing on the planet. Poly Pak seals in Polyurethane or loaded Viton on request. O-rings in Buna-n or Viton. Ware rings in either Teflon or MDS filled Nylon and or Brass coated with Teflon. Our oil is a 0-5 weight proprietary blend of Conoco products, which we try to keep a secret. We use Nickle plated brass and or Stainless-steel Schrader valves with NPT or O-ring boss sealing. Hose material is a 2 wire flex hydraulic hose with steel crimped fittings and swivel 90 fittings when purchased, custom lengths on request