I purchased my car in April of last year with brand new HKS Hypermax GT IV coilovers on it, and they were clean as a whistle. I had put maybe 2,500 miles on the car since that time, with about 4 autox days and 2-3 HPDE sessions, and then had a failure during a normal street drive about 2 months ago. (see pics below).

I understand that I am not the original owner/purchaser, but HKS would not do anything for me, nor could they explain why this happened. It appears to be some kind of defect, I’d think, but unknown as to why this happened. My car was not “slammed”, but was lowered slightly below stock ride height. HKS has commented that the dampening levels should not matter or impact the life of the setup.

To make it worse, they could only order pairs in a set (Front or Rear), but had none in stock in the US, only full setups. To make things worse, this occurred just a few days before the first HPDE of 2016, so I was under the gun on time and ended up having to order a full new set. I went ahead and replaced the rears, then thinking I would have backup replacements for the other 3 corners now as well.

Has anyone else had something like this happen on such relatively new coilovers, for any brand for that matter? I am just extremely disappointed in the amount I needed to spend and HKS’ lack of understanding or initiative to really help in any way, shape, or form. No offer of partial reimbursement or a credit, nothing, zip. For a brand who has been around so long and seems to most, to have a strong reputation, I found it very frustrating. In the end, is this going to happen again? Is this “normal” by any means, and does anyone have any experience with a failure like this?


Pics:

I'm very sorry to see this happened to you. However, from reading through your post, I want to point out a few things that you mentioned.

According to your post, these were purchased in April 2015. HKS warranty on coilovers is for 1 year past the purchase date. I understand it may be disappointing that these failed outside of the warranty period, but like any brand with any part, if it fails after the warranty is up, we're not going to replace them. You also stated that you aren't the original purchaser. Unfortunately, unless you have an original invoice from an HKS retailer, there is no way we'd be able to verify they were purchased less than a year ago and from a genuine retailer.

As for only coming in pairs and not stocking in the U.S. - you have to understand these are manufactured in Japan and they manufacture complete sets at a time. It is not a mass produced product where they come off an assembly line. Each set is put together by hand and complete sets are matched. This is why replacements are only done in pairs as well. It is so they are matched from left to right.

HKS USA does not stock pairs because HKS does not produce a pair of shocks unless ordered. They only do them in full sets, and will do a pair by request, but it is not something they have on the shelf ready to ship to us to stock. The reality is they do not fail often, so it doesn't make sense for HKS to product a bunch of spare parts that they won't sell.

Again, I'm sorry for your failed suspension, but as you stated yourself, these are out of warranty and you weren't the original purchaser (or at least have the original receipt).

Yes, that is all correct and already stated. It is just a very freak and unfortunate incident to have occur, and was further unfortunate that nothing could be done at all, but sometimes we will stick to the policies and procedures in place, which is understandable.

I'd also like to see a specific comment as to the failure itself, how it may have happened, or what would have contributed to it, etc, not just what has already been stated ;-)

Gunkata. Have you shown those parts to a suspension expert? I'm certainly no expert, but perhaps an independent expert would be in a better position to help you figure out how that failure might have happened.