It’s amazing how far some cars go to reach their buyers. Think about it: If you live in New York and buy a car made in Japan, it’ll have made it across the Pacific, through the Panama canal, up the Eastern seaboard to you, pretty much unharmed. As you can probably expect, some measures are put in place to reduce the likelihood of damage during shipping, but one that’s often overlooked is the use of shipping blocks. They’re rarely thought about, supposed to be discarded, but can really leave you checking your fillings if someone forgets to throw them in the bin.
Once a car rolls out of the factory, it begins its journey to a dealer, usually involving transporters at the minimum, but sometimes going on ships and trains as well. Unsurprisingly, all of these methods of transportation require a certain amount of ground clearance, and sometimes cars need a little help maintaining their approach angle. That’s where “transport blocks,” or “shipping blocks,” or “shipping pucks” come in. They slot either into the front coil springs or around the shaft of the dampers, reducing jounce and ensuring that one or both ends of a vehicle are just high enough to prevent scraping when being loaded and unloaded in transport.
Normally, dealerships are expected to remove these transport blocks as part of the normal pre-delivery inspection process, but sometimes that just doesn’t happen. Actually, this oversight is less rare than you’d expect. You could be driving around with transport blocks still installed on your car and simply not know.
A technician working on an E46 BMW M3 posted on Reddit last month, writing “23 years and 50,000 miles and I was the only person to notice the transport blocks were still installed on the front struts.” Sure enough, the post features a great photo of a rather aged transport block held up in front of an M3.
Likewise, there’s a whole thread on the Mustang 7G forum on which various owners have detailed the experience of having their delivery dealers forget to remove the shipping blocks. As one Dark Horse owner wrote:
So I received my dark horse right before Thanksgiving and have driven it very little because the town I live in has lots little rocks on the road and the Perelli’s [sic] that came on it are very sticky tires ,so it was finally time to get some new tires on the car and while It was jacked up the guy asked me if I knew that it still had the shipping blocks on it.
You’d think that bright yellow spring spacers would be hard to miss once you put a vehicle up on a lift, but the number of owners reporting taking delivery with these blocks still in point towards it being a thing to keep an eye out for.
Unsurprisingly, transport blocks being left in place is also a problem on the current Honda Civic Type R. Owners on the CivicXI forum report finding the rubber blocks still cable-tied in their springs after taking delivery. As one owner wrote:
I didn’t catch it when I took delivery and put about 50 miles on before realizing something was off. Took it back to the dealer and gave them hell about missing the step during PDI. Upon further look, removing the blocks wasn’t even on the PDI checklist and the dealer claimed no other Honda’s where being shipped with these so it was missed. Rides a lot better now!
While transport blocks are most common on low-slung performance cars, they’ve historically been used on regular cars too. Many BMWs use them as part of a safe journey across the Atlantic, and unsurprisingly, owners of normal 3 Series sports sedans from before they were made in Mexico reported blocks being left in their vehicles. Here’s one thread from Bimmerpost that shows a solid image of these blocks in place on the rear dampers.
So what could happen if these blocks are left in? Well, these blocks intentionally reduce suspension travel, so they will make your car drive worse if they’re left in. You know the feeling when you go over a big enough road imperfection or compression to hit the bump stops? That’s going to happen sooner if someone forgot to take the shipping blocks out. Not only will leaving these blocks in affect ride quality, it could make things squirrely if you’re hustling it.
While the chances of still having transport blocks on your car are slim in the grand scheme of things as not every car comes with them, the next time your car’s up in the air, it may be worth taking a look to see if any temporary suspension hardware has been a little more permanent than intended.
Top graphic image: Reddit, eBay
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
The post If Your New Car Rides Funny, It Might Be Because The Dealer Forgot To Remove The ‘Shipping Blocks’ appeared first on The Autopian.
