KONI Shock Technical Alert

[Dave Smith]

Official KONI Shock Recall Notice

I wanted to take a moment to let you guys know about a potentially serious matter that requires your immediate attention.

Recently we received a report from a customer regarding a KONI shock absorber that had failed. This is the only incident of a broken KONI shock that we have received. We immediately obtained the part from the customer and forwarded it to the guys at KONI. It was quickly determined by the technical guys at KONI that the root cause of the failure was due to a cold weld. KONI and Factory Five Racing, Inc. are taking immediate action to replace any affected parts in the field.

The potentially affected shocks are in a small range of about 125 customers and were delivered in FFR kits and parts sales AFTER February 2010. We have identified the potentially affected lot numbers and are asking you to check your shocks for the following batch numbers:

Part Number: 30-1720, Date Code: 07-2010
Part Number: 30-1721, Date Code: 07-2010
Part Number: 30-1721, Date Code: 13-2010

Identifying the part number and date code on your KONI shock is very easy by simply examining the shock absorber and locating the part number label which can be found on the exterior of each shock absorber. The shock absorber part number and date code will be printed on this label as shown in picture 1.



An example date code would be 07-2010, which means “produced in week 7 of year 2010”. It is important to pay attention to the date code impressed on the actual shock absorber and not the date code on the box. Note: on older shock absorbers, the part number was stamped into the body of the shock. These older shocks are not affected.

If you have KONI brand red colored shocks with the above listed part numbers and date codes, do not drive your car. KONI is in the process of contacting all potentially affected customers individually with more details. If you identify one of your shocks as having one of the referenced part numbers and date codes, and are not contacted shortly by KONI, please contact the company directly at 800-209-3350. You can also call us here at Factory Five (508-291-3443) if you have any questions or concerns.

On a personal note, I am extremely impressed with the speed, care, and concern with which our supplier KONI has treated this matter. The support and cooperation we’ve received shows that KONI is 100 percent committed to our safety and that of our customers.

[David Hodgkins]

Stickied.

[DARKPT]

I received an e-mail from Koni last night with instructions to complete an on-line form (they even had all my info loaded already, thanks to FFR!), then process a return of the defective parts at Koni's expense. Koni will ship out replacements once they receive my parts.

For anyone else going through this, remember to keep the parts you added to the shock before installing it. I'm guessing they only want the shock itself returned...

[John F]

The rears that I bought at the Open House in 2010 happened to fall into the 13-2010 date code


Koni turned around replacements in a week. Nice!

[mcwho]

I received an email directly from Koni yesterday regarding the recall, my kit was delivered in July 2010 #7287RD, all of my date codes were outside of this recall. Specifically, my date codes were 28-2009 for fronts, and 40-2009 for the rears.

I am very pleased at how Factory Five and Koni have responded to this recall in a timely manner.