Hello everyone,

I just wanted to share with you my horrible experience with the warranty department of ST Suspensions, a KW Suspensions company.

I had KW coilovers on another car about 6 years ago, was very happy with them. Had an issue with one shock blowing out, sent it in and was repaired under warranty. No headaches, the product was under warranty and they honored it.

Being so I decided to purchase a set of ST coils for my 2013 Cooper S Clubman.
After a year of them being on my car, my front suspension completely went out so I took it to a professional shop to removed it and have them instal my stock inspection. I did this because the car was just unsafe to drive, every time I drove over uneven pavement the car would just hop uncontrollably, i actually almost lost control of the car a few times when this happened. It was pretty bad...

I contacted Adam Tormey at ST Suspensions and he had me fill out a form to determine if I was eligible for the 5 year warranty, the suspension was not even one year old. On this form you had to fill in the serial numbers and measurements to make sure that the car was lowered within its designed parameters.

I completed this for and sent it to Adam along with some pictures of the suspension and a pictured of the car with the ST suspension installed. The car was set at the same height since I have installed the car.

After reviewing my form and pictures Adam determined that my suspension was damaged because my car was not lowered enough??? Just so you can visualize it, I had a finger gap front and back. See picture below.

With ST Suspension



Now with the stock suspension



Even after seeing the pictures, ST says that my ride height was wayyy to high on the ST Coilovers. By looking at the settings on the the perches, the car was higher than stock

I was also bottoming out at that height and ST is telling me that the car should be set up a lot lower
We go back and forth, Adam Tormey was just nasty. Immediately he said that I destroyed the suspension. That my suspension was set wayyyy to high. I asked him to send me the RMA number so I can ship it there and for a tech to properly diagnose the problem before making any assumptions. I could not believe that a big company like ST/KW has someone so unprofessional, moody and nasty handling their customer service. If you doubt me just search Adam Tormey with either KW or ST suspensions.

I get the RMA number, pay $75 to ship it back to California. Today I get an email stating the following...

Hello,

Your RMA has been inspected and the lab found that your front Inserts are bent.

CUSTOMER HAS CAR ABOVE RECCOMENDED RIDE HEIGHT. BENT BOTH
INSERTS. WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE ISSUES UNTIL CAR IS LOWERED.
REARS TESTED FINE AND WERE NOT REPLACED. CHARGE CUSTOMER FOR
TWO INSERTS AND TWO DYNO EVALUATIONS.

Your total cost will be 330.00

I called back and spoke with Phil Castro. He was very professional and courteous which I complimented him on but, was of no help.
He said that by the pictures of the coilovers that I sent him, my car was ridding higher than the stock suspension. Again I mentioned to him that I had a finger gap front and back but that just went in one year and out the other. He just continued to say that his tech, who works on $35,000 suspension set ups, has looked at it and determined that the problem was that the ride height was way above its recommended range. Being so it is not over under the 5 year warranty.
If I wanted the suspension repaired it would cost me $330, I replied that this is all ridiculous. You can see clearly that my car is a lot lower than stock from the pictures and why should I pay you $330 if it should be covered under warranty.

I am sharing my story here because I really think that people should avoid ST and KW. They are an awful company and they do not honor their warranty.
I don't want other people to get burned by ST like I have.
I am a pretty calm person, Karma is a *****. They can only steal from customers for a bit, eventually people will realize their scheme.

Save your money and buy yourself a set of Bilsteins or H&Rs.

 

KW is fairly notorious for having crap customer service.

That said, a high ride height doesn't cause bent struts, hitting curbs or pulling big G's with racing slicks bends struts. At worst with too-much spring pre-load is you'll over-stress the top-out spacer and end-caps and it might pull itself apart, but that would have to be with spring rates many times stiffer than what KW puts on their street offerings.

I'm not surprised to hear their interaction has been lackluster. Sorry you've had to experience it. As a side note, I personally wouldn't buy any KW product unless it was a V2 or better. The ST's and V1's have a high propensity for bad seals, and the V2's and upward appear to use much better construction.

 

Having had KW V2 coilovers on my '09 MCS, I felt the performance was very good. Much better than stock when I drove it on the track. So I wouldn't make a blanket statement that KW is "awful."

However, I did have the KW branded model and not ST. Supposedly, the only difference is supposed to be that STs are lacking the stainless steel bodies that the KWs have. Can we trust that is the only difference? They're marketed as an affordable KW so I'm betting there were more opportunities for cost-out.

Either way, sorry to hear about this and hope you find happiness down the road. If you're really looking for more financial relief, post this stuff on ST's Facebook page.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease

 

When it comes to customer service, your are dealing with the same facility. So yes, it is horrible. That is no way to treat a customer. A warranty should be honored no matter what you bought, ST or KW V3s.

Google KW Suspension customer service and see for yourself. I hope that you never have to send your suspension back for warranty work. They will either tell you that your ride is too high or too low.

One word to describe them "pathetic"

 

Being that my career is in sales, I agree that what you experienced is not great customer service.

Just trying to give you some tips to see if you can get some financial relief by blowing up KWs social media pages.

 

Seems like the warranty is written so they never have to pay anyone or fix anything for free. Not a customer service issue, more of a management decision to burn customers and just keep finding new ones.

 

I was originally looking into ST and then KWs but I did some googling and based on that and this post will spend my money elsewhere. Looks like that guy has been a jerk more than a few times. I have two buddies here locally and a couple in Colorado and will tell them to avoid them like the plague. Looks like I am going to spring for some Ohlins instead. Bit up a step up money wise but have heard nothing but good things about them and their customer service through their distributors.

 

That's rather crappy. I have yet to hear something good about ST from someone who wants more than just a lowered car.