Hello everyone, I just wanted to let everyone know that it is possible to get rid of your Mag Ride Shocks on your XLR. I had a "clunk" in the front suspension going in and out of driveways and over speed bumps. I have several friends in the automotive repair business. I took my 04 XLR to three different shops to try to figure out what was loose in my front suspension. All three times we could not find anything wrong with my front suspension. Except that all four shocks where leaking. I knew that I needed to replace my shocks, so I started to research part numbers and prices. Mag Ride shocks are crazy expensive. The cheapest I could find them for was on Amazon for approx. $1800, delivered to my front door. I could get a set of four Bilsteins on Ebay for $396 to my front door. I had read in several Corvette sites that they where able to deprogram the F55 function in their Body Control Module with a Tech2. I also read that a lot of Corvette guys where using plug in simulators to trick the Body Control Module into thinking they still had Mag Ride Shocks in their cars. From everything I read, the simulators where effective about 50% of the time. 50% of the Corvette guys where happy with the simulators and 50% of the guys said they where junk and a waste of money. With all of this info and a couple of months of going back and forth in my head on the best solution, I finally decided to buy the Bilstein Shocks and deprogram my Body Control Module. I replaced all four shock here at home, pretty straight forward, no issues. I test drove the XLR in town and on freeway. Car was super smooth and no more "clunk", but the dreaded -MAX SPEED 80 MPH- displayed on the DIC. Next day I take my XLR to my buddy's transmission shop. He borrowed one of his friends Tech2 for us to use. We spent the entire afternoon trying to deprogram the F55 function in the Body Control Module to no avail. We tried everything we could think of, nothing worked. If we lied to the Tech2 and told it my car was a Corvette we could see the F55 function, but the Tech2 knew the car was not a Corvette, so it would not let us turn off the F55 function. When we would tell the Tech2 that my car was an XLR, we where not able to find the F55 function in the Body Control Module. We even tried using a second Tech2, same thing. We even tried looking for the F55 function in every other Control Module, just in case GM was sneaky and tried to hide it somewhere else. What we came away with was that, some Corvettes have Mag Ride suspensions, others do not. All Cadillac XLR's have Mag Ride suspensions, it's not an option. GM must have written the software differently for the XLR's and Corvettes Body Control Modules. As they come down the assembly line the Corvettes with Mag Ride get the F55 option turned on. Corvettes without Mag Ride do not get the F55 option turned on. XLR's it's not an option, they all have Mag Ride, so no need to have an F55 option to turn on or off. So, no need to write it into the software of the XLR's Body Control Module. It's not an option on the car, It's not an option in the Body Control Module. Now, what to do? The XLR runs and drives great, but the dreaded -MAX SPEED 80 MPH- displayed on the DIC. So, I started to research simulators. I decided to take a chance and ordered a set from Eckler's via Ebay for $218.88 to my front door. A few days later my order from Eckler's arrived. I installed the four Shock simulators and Walla! No more dreaded -MAX SPEED 80 MPH- displayed on the DIC. I didn't have to do anything else, the Body Control Module reset itself. I'm So Happy!! It can be done!! It worked on my 04 XLR. My XLR feels like a brand new car.
