From what I've seen, alot of people dismiss koni yellows for many applications is because they use oem top mounts(that can use aftermarket ones but I'll get to that). People more want than need that extra camber adjustment for wheel fitment, track alignments, aggressive stance, etc etc.so then they buy any brand coilovers that have all the features ride height, alignment, and usually try and buy the cheaper one(cheaper = more mods). I'm not trying to bash anyone for buying x brand over y brand, just trying to make a point. They there suspension blows a shock on their set up after it's only a year and half old( almost all coilovers have 1 year warranty) then they buy another replacement shock and they blow another one and decide to buy another brand and talk about how much better it is than the brand they just replaced it with( this was me years and years ago). So now they just spent alot of money and time on suspension in a short time. Aftermarket has top plates for literally almost all platforms that give you that camber and/or caster adjustment that work with koni shocks. Doesn't koni have a lifetime warranty? Guys with koni shocks literally run them for years without issue, lots and lots of mileay and the damper stays like new for a long time. Again not trying to talk trash at anyone choice but koni, like other companies (billstein being one of them), make dampers that work at a very high level for a long time. And since they have an adjustable series I don't know why more people don't run them. I totally get that you or anyone wants to stick to a price point( especially when they have another project) but I see it as an investment. Which I guess I kind of answered my own question
Funny thing years ago before coilovers were even available for most street sports cars and even a lot of the racing cars ran springs and shocks both Koni’s and Bilsteins were considered pretty much top line.
You could also buy Camber Caster plates. I remember putting Moog Camber Caster plates on my Datsun 510.
Fast forward to the late 80’s and people started putting coilovers together. Ground Control was early in this.
They got smart and sold kits so you could convert your standard struts to ride height adjustable coil overs.
They made them for mainly Koni’s, KYB’s and Tokico’s. Not so much Bilsteins. That was because Koni,KYB and Tokico supplied replacement strut inserts for a lot cars stock struts.
Thing is when companies started putting complete coilover setups together everyone jumped on board.
We all like the idea of the springs being matched and buy a built setup with pillowball amd camber caster plates.Ground control did not offer compete set ups for a lot of cars. They mainly sold kits for a lot of the cars. Including their own camber caster plate.
So we all went down the road of Japanese coilovers because they were the ones that really want to town with them. Tein,JIC, Tanabe,Cusco,GAB,Buddy Club,APEXI, Tomei,ZEAL, etc...
If you were lucky enough to be in Japan you could ge Bilstein Coilovers and Ohlins. Both of which were comsidered cream of the crop over there.
Fact is most of the brands were over damped and Japan has incredibly smooth roads so they could get away with them. Though once they brought those coilovers here and ran them on American roads which were much rougher it showed up how bad those coilovers were. Then the Korean companies and Tawainese
Companies got im on the game. k Sport, BC otherwise known as Bor Chan ( not Buddly Club)plus a few others. They were not much better in my opinion.
What did a lot of us learn though is that a Koni setup built around matched Eibachs made a pretty sweet suspension. We were back to building our own coilovers.
Why because the shocks were just that much better. Thing is the average joe has still not figured those out most of te hard core track guys do. Except that really hard core track guys sometimes go Super Expensive with stuff like Penske which are amazing. Though a lot of grass roots guys run Koni’s .
Oh and there are few modern Coilover companies that are actually pretty good like KW. Which is a European company. The ST line is owned by KW as well. On and of course stuff like ATS, Penske amd other very expensive setups out of Europe.
In the end for our cars Koni Yellows or if you the 8600 series double adjustables are abaolutely awesome.
Its not like our cars needa lot of crazy suspension modding for most drivers. They already handle amazing right out of the box.
Coilovers are convenient. Spring shock Combo’s not as much. Yet because there is an awesome Japanese Spring company named Swift its not a bad way to to go. The other spring company that is better than Eibach happens to be Hyperco.
Where is all this going lol. I think its to answer the queation why more people are not into running Koni’s.
The short is what I said above convenience. The long is the history I stated above.