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Old 09-04-2009, 12:11 AM
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Brandon_SLC Brandon_SLC is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: High on a mountainside, near Salt Lake City.
Posts: 557
In case y'all don't know, many Toyota and Lexus models come with KYBs when new. And they are frequently criticized for riding too soft.

I know for sure that my '92 ES300 came with them. However, the originals had shorter life than their replacements. I also think the car rides a little stiffer with the aftermarket replacements.

One of the things people don't like about KYBs is they have more compression damping and not enough rebound damping. This is generally true in my experience. However, some cars with soft springs and short suspension travel benefit from this approach. Switching to KYBs on some cars completely stops bottoming out problems.

They work great on non modified VW Rabbits. Since discovering how well they worked on my Rabbit I've installed them on every subsequent VW or Audi product, with excellent results. They also work great on my Chrysler. But I must say they worked much better when it wore 14 inch wheels with 70 series tires. Now that I have 15-215-55s on it, I think it's too abrupt on sharp bumps, which we have a lot of in Utah. Here, they frequently don't bother to raise the manhole covers as they re-pave the roads over the years. It saves a few bucks for the city, but it's very hard on cars. (net negative, I think) I drive through town trying to avoid them. In the 240D with 147k miles on the original shocks, it absorbs those big sharp bumps very well. It also has 14 inch wheels with 70 series tires.

I bought a set of 4 for the 240D, but I'm not sure I'm going to put them on. My car had the motor mounts replaced, but all other rubber is 30 years old, dried out, or cracked. I'm not sure my shocks are the main problem, so I'm going to replace all the rubber bushings and such first, restore ride height, etc.
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1979 240D, 4spd manual, Power Sunroof, manual windows, 147k miles, Pastel gray/Black MB Tex.
1991 300D 2.5 - Smokes like it's on Crack!
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