This is my post from another non car related forum so it may sound weird to you car guys......

I was going to buy a new Honda Fit to replace my 2009 Fit after driving around my 2015 loaner from Honda for the Honda air bag recall. I really liked the smoother ride of the next gen Fit. But too many issues with the GDI fuel injection (direct injection) carbon build up that happens with this design on all GDI systems and the longevity of a CVT with my hard driving style has had me rethink the purchase.

I felt a couple CVT weird belt bobbles of late that could advance into something from what I have been reading. This car has 9,000 miles on it and it just started doing it. I have not been overly hard on it, but I have used it in some spirited driving.

Now getting to the shocks. So after doing some research on the forums I found out that SOME people installed the orange non adjustable Koni shocks and found they liked the ride better. Some said they did not notice a difference. I found a bit less roughness on small studded bumps, or exactly were the Fit hammers you up on 2009 to 2013 model years. All four struts/shocks cost with Koni's shock sale going on for the next month or so, cost delivered $288.00 from Auto Anything dot com. Great, fast company, they were shipped in 2 days. Don't buy anything from shockwarehouse dot com IE double charge, absolute ahole on the phone then found horrible rating after I looked into them.

KONI STR.T Orange Shocks & Struts - FREE SHIPPING



The best way to describe it is, the ride is more refined, more German car like. Still very stiffly valved like the OEM', but smoother. My advice if you own a Honda Fit in those years stated above, get the rears $58.00 ea and leave the fronts if you want to save money since the fronts are a whole lot more work and $$ to put in. Also, a rough riding car comes more from the rear, then the front, so your cost vs smoother ride ratio is very high going with the rear shocks. You will use the OEM dust sheilds and a quick way to pull the collar is to use a metal chisel to split the collar open at the crimp point and slide off.

If you are a car guy and are going to do the fronts yourself, you will need to get the MAPP gas or torch out to heat up the lock-tight to pull the front struts and all you will need is a new front mushroom bearing for the upper struts. I bought a KYB kit but did not use the new upper rubber bumper because it was not squished down and would of added another 1/4 height that I did not want, plus the upper bearing was a tighter FIT in the older one. The new ones would squish down with time. You will have to add 2 grade 8 custom washers that YOU will have to fabricate to fit over the threaded top of strut. Koni's machining did not thread all the way down to the piston rod and then they tapered down to give it too much slop for the upper bearing to slip back and forth. This fixes their design screw-up and I have been in contact with Koni about this. You will notice a lot of slop in the bearing area where the strut was stepped down, this by design for the unrefined design by Honda to deal with turning of the upper strut off axis going lock to lock.

So $330 later I am very happy with the outcome on increased ride quality. Not by much, but noticeable to me and it took the edge off of the unrefined ride of the Honda Fit.

.