Volvo OEM shock/strut replacement.

Let’s talk shocks for a 100% street car.

My Volvo C30 has recently rolled 100K miles and I’m doing a rolling restoration to keep it good for another 100K.

Only recently have the shocks shown any decay, but it’s suddenly started and is increasing rapidly, but they were already on the list. One of the things I absolutely loved about the C30 right from the first test drive was the ride handling balance and that was one of the reasons why I purchased it over a Mazdaspeed 3 when new. To me, many ‘performance’ oriented vehicles unnecessarily sacrifice ride for the ‘perception’ of performance. The MS3 always felt way overdamped in the rear, as do many other vehicles. I’m looking at maintaining that great ride handling balance along with probably uprating the sway bar end links and probably a stiffer rear bar. Everything I’ve replaced of the car from the start has been OEM parts, but I’m not necessarily inclined to go that way with shocks, I’m considering Bilstein and people keep telling me how great KYB-GR2’s are. Koni is flat out off the table, every Koni I’ve felt seems to have too harsh re-bound damping at the cost of handling on rough surfaces.

What I’m not interested in is:
Autocross or track performance, this car has done a few autocrosses and a couple of track days (it hit the Nurburgring when 3 days old) but I haven’t done any kind of competition in about 4 years and my interest is minimal in the extreme.
I don’t’ want soft wallowy crap, I care very much about handling, but street handling with Michigan special stages, sorry silky smooth craters.
Crap that’s going to blow in 5 mins.
Channing spring rate or lowering any more than it is stock (V2.0 was about ½ - 1” lower than base stock from the factory)

What I am interested in:
Real world crappy Michigan road handling and back road blasts, possibly TSD at the most.
Not ruining the amazing ride/handling balance from the factory
Not having to think about the shocks for another 5 years

So in approx. order of cost lowest to highest we have:

KYB GR-2
Koni FSD (do these really ride better than most Koni offereings, if not then off the list)
Bilstein B4
Bilstein B6
Bilstein B8
OEM Ovlov

Thoughts? Advice? Experience?

Cheers.

Saw this thread title and thought it would be an opportunity to unload the pair of Koni shocks I have for the rear of an 850 that have been sitting in my spare parts tub for the past 3-4 years. Guess not

That's all I have to contribute, sorry. Carry on...

Sachs.

The KYB GR-2's are decent shocks and seem to have a long life. I have had them an a few cars. They lasted well over 100k miles, but that was on smoother North Carolina roads.

I have Koni FSDs with VW/Eibach sport springs on my Golf TDI and it is great! Just sporty enough and not harsh or wallowy at all. I bought it with about 88k miles on it and replaced the dampers at 130k ish miles. So the dampers were worn to begin with but it still handled great. Now it is phenomenal and not overly harsh. I'm surprised how quickly it will take exit ramps. I went with the FSDs over Bilsteins because there was a 50% off sale at the time. I'm very pleased so far and they made the car feel new again. You're welcome to give it a drive at some point.

A friend of mine has a C30 and coming from a 2003 MCS his biggest complaint about the car is the real world handling. His car has well over 100K miles and I'm not sure if it still has the OE struts.

Based on my experience with FSD's and how they are a nice upgrade for the R53, those would be my first choice. I'd keep the springs stock.

Has anyone done a back to back comparison with Koni FSD's and not worn out OEM shocks on anything?

::Threadjack:: I smell a good GRM comparison article. Bang for the buck damper upgrades. (I think this may have been done a while ago, but might be good for a revisit with new crop of dampers and/or cars). OE vs. Bilsteins (of various types) vs. Koni FSDs, vs. xxx

::End Threadjack::

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

Not sure if it applies here, but when I swapped FSD's onto the -ex's '03 MCS, the OE struts (Sachs, IIRC) had maybe 30K miles on them. The ride improved a lot, even with swapping in poly LCA bushings and heavier-duty camber plates at the same time. Springs were kept stock (she didn't want the car lowered).

Edit: Just remembered... I also installed FSD's on her '96 850 wagon. However, the car had Bilstein Sports and H&R lowering springs when she bought it. The car rode like crap with those. The ride is nice with the FSD's and stock springs and doesn't handle half bad for a big wagon. I still have the Bilsteins in my attic (in the FSD box).

CGLockRacer wrote: ::Threadjack:: I smell a good GRM comparison article. Bang for the buck damper upgrades. (I think this may have been done a while ago, but might be good for a revisit with new crop of dampers and/or cars). OE vs. Bilsteins (of various types) vs. Koni FSDs, vs. xxx ::End Threadjack::

Not a thread jack at all, now if you could just lend the staff a TARDIS so the new article can come out last month I'd be really grateful.

FSD's are swaying me (pun somewhat intended) Now if I can just find a decent price.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

Yeah... that's the tough part. I almost bought them for my '03 TDI but chickened out and bought Bilstein TC's instead. Those were an improvement over stock (which bottomed out a LOT), but I think the FSD's would have been better. But hard to say if they would have been 2x better, reflecting the difference in price at the time (about 2006).

OEM Ovlov are probably high quality Sachs units. Go with them.

I haven't ever really been impressed with Bilstein's non-HD struts. At one point I had a worn out OE strut and one new Bilstein on my VW and couldn't tell the difference. So the next time I replaced that wheel bearing, I put the ancient OE strut back in.

My Volvo has Bilsteins twin-tubes on the front, mainly because they were very very cheap on eBay. I'd prefer something else. (It has KYB AGXs on the back. KYB doesn't make anything for the front)

We put FSDs on our Mazda3 when it had 70k and shocks were still ok. Even with eibach springs going on at the same time, the ride improved. 100k later, the fronts are still good, had rears replaced under warranty due to rust. This is a very similar platform to your c30. We would totally get FSDs again in the future for daily driver type cars, good handing and a much nicer ride than the cars I have had with Koni sports.

I put Eibachs and Koni STR.Ts on my 850, wish I had paid more and got the FSDs. The ride wasn't unbearable, but when I lived in Columbus, I began dreading driving home across town after a long day at work. Road seams, and potholes sucked.

I was going to buy FSDs, but the price and my cheap ass, regretfully had me go another direction.

Now that the 850 isn't a daily, I only drive it a few times a month when SWMBO and I can't carpool, it's less of an issue. Also Arkansas roads don't suck near as bad as Ohio roads.