It's more like the low end cost brands use roughly the same shock and valving for every car and just slap on the right mounts and top hats and call it a day. Moving to the higher end stuff you get a shock that was developed for your chassis. That's why the cheap stuff is decent on some cars and garbage on others. There is some value in what you pay for. It's not all just paying for a name.

 

Brands - the sticker you see on the box
Manufacturer - the factory (or factories) that actually make the products that get branded

Its an important distinction to make that I don't think many folks understand. The brand that you buy is rarely the manufacturer. And most end users will never know who the manufacturer is behind the coilover they buy. I'd argue that many of the low-end brands out there know either.

The point is that these manufacturers have the technical ability to make very quality shocks. Provided with the right specifications, and sufficient budget to buy quality materials, some high performance coilovers have and can continue to come out of Asia. People's beef with low-performing shocks should be with the brand they buy (or don't buy) from, and not with manufacturers.

 

For instance Ohlins DFV are manufactured in Japan I believe. Fortune 500 is assembled in the US, but the parts are made to specification overseas. Its the nature of the supply chain in manufacturing these days.

 

Fortune Auto 500 components are from China. Tein components are from China. Tein coilovers are also assembled in China if I'm not mistaken. And so are most of the popular JDM brand coilovers I believe (except for Sachs, Cusco, Showa and a few others).

There are great things assembled in China. Apple products are a good example, with their precision electronics and nicely machined metal cases with very tight tolerances. But iPhones and Macbooks are a totally different market and Apple is overseeing their high quality and quality control very well. It's hard to say if coilover companies do the same (most likely not).

For a large sum of money spent on coilovers, I wouldn't take any chances and I would rather get Ohlins, KW, Bilstein, or JRZ, MCS, AST if you had a big budget and were a serious track enthusiast or racer.

 

It kinda baffles me why you would even consider Stance or BC when Ohlins are one of your options...not even in the same price point or performance level compared to the other two.

For the same price point as the Ohlins DFV, I would consider KW v3 as well. Both are proven and have only positive reviews.



And regarding someone saying Tein sucks, their Flex (I have driven with Flex in a friend's s2k, my Fortune Auto 500 ride better imo) and whatever else is cheaper/below sucks, heard Monoflex is meh, but The SRC is definitely something else (also used on the Evasive s2k) and whatever is above that I am sure is great as well. It's just their "affordable" coils blow

 

Yeah, I'm sure the SRC might be good because some other well known shops advocate or are using them at the track. But would you risk spending your $4-5k on the SRC with Tein's known usage of cheap components for their lower models, or would you spend that big chunk of your money on tried-&-true Ohlins, Penske, Bilstein, JRZ, KW, MCS, AST? It's really up to you.