Did you know that a company called Tenneco Inc, located in Monroe, MI is the manufacture of the OEM FoMoCo / Motorcraft shocks that are OEM in Ford trucks?

Did you ALSO know that Tenneco is the parent company of Rancho Suspension and this is why the Rancho shocks that are included with Ford trucks are actually produced by the same company that makes the shocks for Ford Motor Company? This is why part numbers and other information may appear the same.

I was under the impression that Rancho and the FoMoCo shocks were produced by different companies.

Oh, they also make Monroe Shocks also. And they make Marzocchi shocks (for bikes).

Maybe you knew this though.

 

From Overview | Tenneco Inc.

Tenneco has a balanced customer base, serving original equipment manufacturers on a global basis, including:

General Motors
Ford Motor Co.
Volkswagen
Daimler
Toyota
PSA Peugeot Citroen
BMW AG
Chrysler
Harley-Davidson SAIC
Nissan
Honda
Suzuki
Mazda
Renault
Caterpillar
International Truck
Tata Motors

In the aftermarket, we serve more than 500 distributors and retailers, including such familiar names as:

NAPA
TEMOT Autoteile
ADI
Advance Auto Parts O'Reilly Automotive
Kwik-Fit Europe
Uni-Select
Pep Boys

We sell our ride performance products primarily under the well-known Monroe® brand, as well as Clevite® Elastomers, Fric RotTM, Axios® and Rancho®.

On the clean air side of the business, we market our products globally under highly recognized brands like Walker®, Fonos and Dynomax®.


So, what's your point?

 

You obviously don't drive an FX4 with the OEM Ranchos, or you would understand why this came as a surprise to me (and perhaps other OEM Rancho Ford customers)

The OEM Ranchos are shot after around 1000mile on a BRAND NEW TRUCK. It's obvious that there is some development and manufacturing tie between Rancho and Ford and Motorcraft, because if they were separate companies, Rancho wouldn't product such crappy OEM shocks.

 

The quality of the Rancho branded shocks on the FX-4 has been discussed many times.

Just because Tenneco makes the parts does not mean there is a development tie between Motorcraft and Rancho. It just means that those brand of shocks are built in the same factory.

It also does not mean they are the same company. Tenneco manufactures the shocks for Motorcraft. It does not own Motorcraft. Tenneco also manufactures the OEM shocks for Harley-Davidson SAIC, but it does not own Harley-Davidson SAIC,

 

I understand that Tenneco doesn't own motocraft, but, it can't be discounted that the oem shocks are branded with Rancho stickers but are stamped FoMoCo at the bottom along with Motorcraft.

 

Hum,m, could it be that the OEM shocks are chosen for the basic chassis and on-road use and not for all the extras that we like to pile on to that chassis and then drive across open fields and other muddy areas?

 

Iron Cobra, can you source this information somewhere? I was aware that Tenneco was a major OEM supplier, and that they owned Rancho as well as Monroe, but I'd never seen anything definitive that they were the OEM manufacturer. I had always assumed that, as it stood to reason that they would considering how the FX4 shocks are Rancho-branded.

 

It actually says at the bottom of the About Us section on their website tha they are the manufacturer of OEM and aftermarket shocks from Rancho and Ford.

From the AboutRancho section of Ranchos site:
Rancho products are manufactured and marketed by Tenneco Inc (NYSE: TEN) a $5.9 billion manufacturing company best known for its ride control and emission brands, including: Monroe® shocks and struts, Walker® Exhaust, Gillet® and Clevite® Elastomers, and DynoMax® Performance Exhaust.

From Tenneco:
http://www.tenneco.com/original_equi...oem_customers/