Word of warning for folks considering ST/KW products

works

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Mar 1, 2018
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135i
Quick heads up: I'm having major support issues with KW on my hobby/toy BMW 135i. The ST XTA coilovers that I have, which are manufactured by KW, did come with a manufacturing defect that I for the longest time thought to be installation issue as I did that with a friend of mine and we are no professional mechanics in any standard.

Basically the upper spring perches are loose and make an awful racket when the car is driven. Just google "ST coilover clunk" and you'll get plenty of results. I wish that I had done this before sinking money into the ST coilovers and just bit the bullet and had gone with Öhlins Road'n'Track instead. Oh well, hopefully someone reading this can make better judgement calls on this than I did.

I tried to work this out with KW online support and after giving me a major runaround with their warranty card, which required me to take my car apart to get all of the product codes and measurements for me they just blankly stated that I need to deal with the vendor directly and went dark.

Here is a short demonstration of my kit's defect:

Here is another BMW owner with E46 who has the exact same issue:

So, if and when you are dealing with KW products, get them from a local reputable vendor as KW the manufacturer does not care for one bit if you have issues with their products, even if it would be a well known manufacturing error on their part as I've found out.

I have to conclude that after the fiasco with their support I will be voting with my wallet and will not get any KW products, ever, if I can at all avoid it. If any of you however do, please know that if you have any issues with their products, you will need to deal all warranty claims with the re-seller. Luckily I bought mine off from Amazon, so they might have enough weight to pummel KW into submission and get me replacement front shocks as the E46 owner in the above video was not even able to get a response out of KW support. I luckily had dealt with their financial department before and could ask them to forward my support claim onwards as I didn't have any luck on reaching support through the email addresses that KW has posted on their site.

I did send a notification of their support failure to KW's COO, let's see if they have any vested interest do improve their customer facing support.
 
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martymil

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Sep 6, 2017
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I had the choice of the st kit or the bc er kit for around the same price, I chose the bc's as they where slightly cheaper and a better bang for buck and judging by your experience I made the right choice as I never had issues with mine on my 135i.

Just goes to show german is not always better
 

evl335

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Oct 30, 2019
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e92 335 dct
RS-R Make coilovers for BMW highest quality made in Japan better ride than factory got them on my e92 335
 

martymil

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Sep 6, 2017
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Currently running ohlins R/T on my 1m and they have been more than unbelievable in terms of support.

I had a rear shock damaged by a caster arm breaking off hitting and damaging the shock, there was no issue in contacting them and getting a replacement.

They where a little slow but got all the parts needed to fix it.

It's how a company conducts itself when it comes to support when you need help down the track that wins my loyalty.
 

fmorelli

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Aug 11, 2017
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Bingo. Just do the Öhlins. @barry@3DM supports them in the USA and BMW suspensions are his specialty. Hard to beat that. He also stocks parts for Öhlins. We've got some new things cooking for my Z4 and expect to be all TTX soon. He's also developing a higher horsepower application configuration for E9x, with Öhlins R&T in the front with Öhlins TTX in the rear.

Filippo
 
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