Need help on buying shock absorbers for Suzuki WagonR Stingray 2014

viraj_g · June 29, 2024

I am looking to buy new shock absorbers for my Wagon R Stingray MH44S model. I need to make sure that I am buying the correct ones this time since the shock absorbers I once bought do not give me the comfort I expected from new shock absorbers. I bought them over the counter just by mentioning my vehicle model.

Because of that bad experience, I thought of reaching out to KYB customer support via email asking the correct shock absorbers model and in response they mentioned that KYB is not manufacturing shock absorbers for my vehicle model.

Now, with this situation, I am unsure even Taas Agencies has a model that fits.

Can someone pls guide me buying a correct model for my requirement?

Thanks in advance

iRage · June 29, 2024

On 6/29/2024 at 11:05 AM, viraj_g said:

I am looking to buy new shock absorbers for my Wagon R Stingray MH44S model. I need to make sure that I am buying the correct ones this time since the shock absorbers I once bought do not give me the comfort I expected from new shock absorbers. I bought them over the counter just by mentioning my vehicle model.

Because of that bad experience, I thought of reaching out to KYB customer support via email asking the correct shock absorbers model and in response they mentioned that KYB is not manufacturing shock absorbers for my vehicle model.

Now, with this situation, I am unsure even Taas Agencies has a model that fits.

Can someone pls guide me buying a correct model for my requirement?

Thanks in advance

Expand

For starters...you wrote to the wrong people. You have written to customer support of KYB America. Obviously, they won't have shock absorbers for a Wagon R, let alone know what a Wagon R is! If you look at Asian, Japanese in particular, sites, you will see that there are quite a few KYB suspension solutions for Wagon Rs, ranging from normal road use, lowered down to sports use. So... the KYB agents in SL will have shock absorbers for the wagon r. Whether it will be in stock or not is a different problem.

About the comfort...there are two things people don't realize...

1. When they buy their unregistered Wagon R from Japan, the car has been used in Japan for some time giving the suspension time to wear out a little. So when they start using the car in SL the suspension would be a bit loosened up. This is especially the case because 90% of the vehicles that are sold as unregistered have rolled back mileages. Even on so called 0 mileage vehicles. So even if the meter shows 6000km..the likelihood is that (99% chance) that it actually has done 30,000. Also, cars like the Wagon R are used quite harshly...so used kei cars over here have really bad engines and drive trains.

2. Parts manufacturers make parts for car manufacturers with specifications provided by the car manufacturer for each of their car models. So KYB would make shocks for Suzuk (i.e. OEM part) for a Wagon R, Alto, Carry, Hustler, Xbee, etc..).

At the same time, KYB would also make other shocks that are similar to what they provide Suzuki but with different specs, i.e., they make compatible parts. These compatible parts, in most cases, can be used for a host of other similar types of cars (e.g., the same part can perhaps be used on any kei car, whether it be an Alto, Wagon R, or even Hustler).

In a country like Japan, you can go to a shop and buy the exact part KYB gives Suzuki, ie. the OEM part or buy the compatible part. However, in a country like Sri Lanka, where people are price-conscious and the market is small, what you can buy is just one type of part, and usually, that would be whichever part (the OEM part or compatible part) is cheaper to source. 99% of the time the cheaper part would be the compatible part to buy and import to SL. Because the compatible part (although made by the same manufacturer that makes the part for Suzuki) has different specs the ride can be different from what it was when the car came from the factory.

Instead of writing to random people and getting unnecessarily worried, go to the KYB agent and ask what they have. Get the part number. Go on the internet and find out if that is the OEM part or a general part that is compatible (The KYB agent will just say it is the Suzuki part because the salespeople themselves would not know whether it is the OEM part or not). Chances are you will just get the compatible part or an OEM part from a different variant/year that works for your variant/year as well (e.g. If you take the 141 Axio the pre-facelift and facelift have different shocks...but the KYB agent carried only the shocks for the facelift version but told everyone it is the original part for even the pre-facelift Axio Thus you see pre-facelift Axios that just sit funny)

viraj_g · June 30, 2024

Thank you very much for your response.

There are couple of reasons why I decided to write to KYB.

1. I could not find any other official customer support to reach out to.
2. There was a thread in this same forum that discussed about TAAS agencies giving wrong shock absorbers. This is why I did not reach out to them to start off with.

Now I realise that I have written to the wrong people. Thanks again for the explanation.

Regarding the comfort that I expected,

I was expecting the comfort which my vehicle was giving when I first bought it. (I am the second owner and the vehicle had 35000 km on it when I bought it). But the new ones I bought were not upto that level at least. I bought them from a well known shop from Delkanda and they said for Wagon R vehicles, what everyone sell is a model that comes for Mazda. So I bought them. Unfortunately, due to the busy schedule and the commitments, I could not get them exchanged within the warranty period of 6 months.

Due to this bad experience, I need to make sure that the next purchase I make is for the correct one.

---

So, Ill talk to TAAS agencies first and see where it goes from there.

Thanks a lot