You're on the East Coast. They're on the West Coast. It's not that much of a stretch that you'd have to wait a few hours in the morning before they'll appear online.

 

I called the last two days. And they answered the phone both times. They said they were going to call me back though. I still need to get my money for my shock.

I ordered an advanced replacement shock from KSport over the phone a couple weeks ago. It cost $160 with shipping. It got to my house in a couple days. I installed it on the rear and found out my shock was completely blown. I could compress it with my hands. I sent the blown shock to them and they got it Monday. They will have to inspect it and give me my money back. I was calling them to see when I would get my money back.

So far, there customer service has been alright.

 

Okay, I just spoke with them a minute ago. Excellent customer service for me!

 

okay i went to do my usual inspection under the car and noticed a very wet rear passenger strut. does this look like its leaking/blown? the brakeline even had fluid on it. the other one was completely dry.



heres the driver side one.


im a little disappointed if its blown. i dont want the other ones to start going too...does anyone know if the replacements are a little different to prevent this from happening?

 

wow that sux, it does look blown to me...i dunno where else that grease could have came form?

lift up the dust cover on the ksport, and run your finger along the shock body...see if the fluid is coming from there?

 

Yeah I saw some oily stuff, so its gotta be that....damn. I thought it wouldn't happen to me.

 

One blown damper doesn't mean you'll have more. You should replace it ASAP though. Are you still under warranty?

 

yes im under warranty. whats the best way to do it. just replace the whole thing? or just the damper?

 

thats blown. if you send the whole unit it all they will do is just replace the damper and send it back.

 

I can't send them it because I need to drive my car.

 

Chillin, I was in the same situation. Once you manage to get ahold of them, get a return #, then you "buy" a new replacement cartridge and ship back the old one. It's a piece of cake to swapout the carttridges. Once they have recieved it they will reimburse you for the purchase price. I think you end up paying for shipping for one way...... It's not a bad deal. I had my old one out disassembled and replaced and reinstalled in about 45 minutes. That includes cleaning the old oily strut body.

 

The biggest factor is tightening the top nut without twisting the piston inside the damper. Sending it in is good because they have a machine that can hold the damper piston and keep it from turning as they torque the top nut down and get it exactly where it needs to be. If you were trying to replace a front damper, that would be important because the top nut has to be torqued down to EXACTLY 45 lbs or you run the risk of getting noise and abnormal wear in the pillow ball mount. Since this is a rear, though, you don't really have much to worry about. Just count the threads and use your impact tools lightly.

To reduce downtime, ask for an advance replacement. They will take your credit card info, charge you for a new damper, and send you a new one. Then, you take your coilover apart, put in the new damper, and send them the busted one. Once they get it, they'll refund the charge.


EDIT: Agh, beat to it again. Never .org from the girlfriend's place...

 

alright, well im just waiting on a reply email. driving on a blown coilover SUCKS. i hope it isnt putting wear on the other ones.

 

Yes, call them and say to want an advanced replacement.

 

Technically it is causing slightly more wear on the other rear damper because of the sway bar, but if you caught it relatively quickly it should be okay.

 

Oh, in case people still don't take Ksport seriously:

http://www.ksportusa.com/motorsports/pr9906.html

 

aim support wasnt that great. whoever it was couldnt tell me which coilovers i had after telling them what car/year/purchase date.
i ended up just calling them and everything was handled professionally and immediately.
i hope it ships quick!

 

Hey guys, I just installed these ksports on my 2002 Altima, and I have a few sound issues. I've been reading the majority of this thread, but have not come across a resolution for it, I don't think..

1) When ever I go over a medium bump/pothole I hear a loud clank from all 4 corners (depending on which hit the bump). What is causing this? I tried tightening all of the collars as tight as I could...they are tight as hell. And my preload on all 4 is pretty tight, probably ~5 full turns from when the spring gets snug. The strut mount bolts are around torqued around 50 ft/lbs. and the control arm bolts are 150 ft/lbs.

2) From only the rear, I can hear an annoying/loud squeek and rubbing sound when the car is going through bumps. Definately related to the spring I would think. I tried adding lithium grease to the isolator/top mount area as it said in the first post...but that did nothing, the problem is the same.

Any ideas?

And also...is there supposed to be any gasket type deal between the coil over and the strut mount? or do they just go onto each other? Right now, front and rear is just metal to metal...

 

I have the same clunk noise on certain bumps only in the front tho....I don't know what it is either. I dont have the gaskets on either.

 

Just to warn you, fr0mastaj, you might have a hard time finding your answers here. A lot of the time, noise issues have just as much to do with the car as with the coilovers, and you're not asking about a Maxima.

I'll try anyway, though...

Damn, that is a ton of preload...

Does the noise sound the same no matter which wheel hits the bump? If so, you're probably just not used to the additional noise you'll get when you hit a bump with suspension that doesn't have rubber to absorb the impact.

Nothing about the spring would cause a squeak. Your frame is probably just flexing, causing sections of the sheetmetal to rub against each other. You should hear the noises my car sometimes makes...

That is definitely specific to your car. I can't answer this one...

 

I thought that it might of been the preload making the clang sound to begin with, because I first started with no preload (just making it snug), to I turned up the preload to see if that was the issue. So are you saying that a loud bang is NORMAL with coil overs? It definately doesn't sound normal to me .

Thanks for your input btw.

 

Honestly, however much I would like to help, I'm flying blind here. I'm not familiar at all with the 2002 Altima's suspension, much less could I tell for sure what could be causing the sound.

I do know that you will definitely get more noise over bumps with this suspension because it has so few soft parts compared to the stock suspension, but I don't have enough information about the noise you're getting to know whether it's normal. As I asked before, does it sound the same no matter what corner it's coming from? Could you describe the sound further?

 

Hey, your problem sounds like mine. I bet the altima setup uses the stock rear mounts like my 6th gen did? Well if this is the case then thats your problem. I was getting a HORRIBLE noise, not just bad, it was REAL BAD. Ksport had to manufacture rear mounts because the stock ones permit movement, the shock is sliding/griding the stock mount down slowly. Its kinda like when u pull a staw up and down when its in a fast food cup, it makes that weird noise. Thats basically what your rear coilovers are doing. Anways, get the rear mounts, it fixed my problem completely. Now all I hear is the occasional clunk when I turn into the driveway and stuff.

 

Yea, it's the same sound no matter which corner its coming from. And to best describe the sound. I would guess the sound of someone taking a hammer and whacking it against the strut mount(s). Metal to metal bang.

 

What to you mean get rear mounts...? On my rear setup, the chassis has 2 studs sticking out from the strut mount, instead of having the stud on the coil over. So I just secure the coil over in the rear with a 12mm nut..thats about it. I'm guessing we have different setups?

Here is a pic of my rear set up. Thats not my car, but its the same.


and here's a pic of my car- the front coil over

Does everything look like its mounted correctly?

 

The rear setup looks similar to mine but your DOES have the rear upper mounts. When I bought my coilovers Ksport didnt have rear mounts, u had to use the stock ones. It caused MAJOR noise problems and I eventually got it fixed. I guess you have other problems....

 

And this noise happens on EVERY bump you hit?

 

Not the little bumps, but medium sized and up. Like little cracks/broken road, its fine. But for example, driving over a manhole cover..Clang!

 

okay for some stupid reason i didnt know it would be JUST the damper. well it came in today and now i see what your saying about bolting it down. you said the piston SHOULDNT turn? cause i was playing with it and compressed the damper with my ....arms. and i turned the piston a little bit too, not too much but i didnt think it would make that much of a difference. do you think i did anything? i am about to put it in the car is there something i should do first?

i mean turning it is just as if i was changing the dampening settings right? to stiffen/loosen.

 

I have the same noises over medium large bumps. But also tonight my front left coilover started to make a squishy noise randomly. Any input?

 

A little twist here or there won't really do anything. You just don't want to be giving it full turns as you try to torque down that nut.

Turning the whole piston is very different from turning that little thing inside that changes damping.

 

Check for oil...

 

What do you guys mean when you are compressing the damper? Are you turning that nut on the top of the coil overs? What does that do? I didnt know what that was, so I gave it a full turn with my ratchet, and all it seems to do is swivel the pillow ball around with it? Should I turn it back??

 

Damper = the correct term for what people usually call a shock absorber
Compressing = pushing the damper piston down into the damper body
The nut you turned = connected to the piston, which we just finished saying should not be turned if possible

 

okay i think i've got a problem.
the rear damper i recieved does not look like my old one, it looks like a front one, the tips are different and theres a slight difference on the top seal. I dont know if they changed the rear dampers and i got a new version or something but it seemed different.
also as far as tightening the nut, the piston would start turning...there was nothing i could do, i just didnt tighten it down too much to where it would spin...i hope thats 45 pounds i knew a torque wrench would turn it for sure though so i didnt even bother.

 

 

They do seem to have made slight changes to the design. I saw the same thing with mine. Don't worry about it.

About the torque spec, don't sweat that either. It really only matters that much for a front coilover because of the camber plate. For a rear coilover, the only thing that changes is the preload on the bushing, and that is highly unlikely to make a difference.

 

ok whew, what a relief. hopefully this one lasts longer. and hopefully if the other one is gonna die it dies before my warranty runs out in december.
gotta send the old damper back but a thumbs up from me to ksport for the customer support.

 

Don't worry about the warranty. I called a week before mine was up and told them I had mine for a little under a year and they did it. If you get a blown shock past Decmember just tell them you've had the KSports for a couple months. I don't think they care and keep nothing on record.

 

The records are available. If they don't verify your date of purchase, it's most likely because they're just too busy to care at the moment. It's just way too much more work to check into it than it is just to grab a damper off the shelf and mail it out. If they get a couple of people who were past warranty, meh... It's good PR anyway.