Blown Koni Yellow

I was doing routine maintenance under the car and noticed that my front passenger Koni Yellow insert appeared to be leaking. Has anyone had this issue before? I believe Koni has a lifetime warranty on their dampers. Would it make sense to replace with a replacement insert or go with the full strut which supports the WRX line?

Though they'll bolt up, I don't think Konis will send you WRX struts in place of your inserts.

They will honor the warranty as long as you can prove you're the original purchaser, I've had it done twice.

I didn't buy the yellows for two reasons. Having to gut your stock assembly on the front was more work than I wanted if I was paying good money for an aftermarket upgrade. I toyed with the idea if Bilstein b6, or b8 because the stroke is designed for a lowered sport spring. With a Koni, the shell of front strut is sized to fit in the stock strut and couldn't possibly benefit from a larger volume of oil or a thicker high tensile housing to accommodate the higher demand with it being a sport strut. It's hard for me to wrap my head around how it could possibly last anywhere near a KYB. I decided to be a guinea pig and try Tein endurapro plus which are also twin tube adjustable dampening. They aren't rebuildable, but I'm not sure what you are supposed to throw on your car with the Koni yellow waiting on a rebuild. I recently saw a new KYB sport strut but is only marketed in Japan. It's a shame Tokico didn't keep making the sport strut I've read some Subies could use. I hope you get your strut rebuilt by Koni quickly. Too bad they don't just have rebuilds in stock where you just send yours in to be rebuilt for the next person who needs one. My car is a daily driver with no back up. I dream my legacy handled anywhere near a stock BMW 5 series with stock sport suspension. They just seem to be a soft, unresponsive, and not as predictable as I had hoped before buying. Engine mods seem to be where they shine.

 

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

Though they'll bolt up, I don't think Konis will send you WRX struts in place of your inserts.

They will honor the warranty as long as you can prove you're the original purchaser, I've had it done twice.

 

I assume you had two Koni's fail?

One was a suspected failure that turned out to be something else, and the other was a clunk after 80k or so. No major leak like what you saw though.

I had a similar thing happen with a rear Koni for my WRX a few years ago. They honor their warranty without any problems. In my case, it was obvious that the shock was blown. Going over a bump had the tire on that corner bouncing down the road for a few seconds afterwards. So there was no question about diagnosis. So the process was for me to buy a single new one from Tirerack, and swap them out. Then I sent Koni the blown one in the new packaging, and when they received it, they reimbursed me for the total cost of the Tirerack order. I don't remember if they reimbursed for the shipping to Koni. But it was all pretty painless, and the only downtime was for swapping the inserts.