i live in NYC and everyone knows that the roads are ****. i have my konis adjusted to stiff 24/7. should i not have them adjusted like that? does the life span decrease having them like that all the time? or should i soften them up when im doing my daily things?

 

I would highly suggest that you soften them up quite a bit as there is no reason for them to be cranked so high on the street. You are only just pounding yourself and your car needlessly and probably not helpiong the shocks any either.

Konis are valved to already be good performance shocks when new at the full soft setting to give the performance ride and handling balance that the engineers decided was best for the car. if you have some stiffer than stock perforamcne lowering springs, normally about 1/2 to 1 turn is plenty of adjustment to work with the higher rates (my Koni Sports are at 3/4 turn off soft for a rather aggressively sprung Ground Control-like coil-over threaded sleeve system). the shocks are normally twice as firm at the max setting as they are at the min setting so that you have a wide adjustment range for tuning and wear compensation of the what should be a 100k-150k mile lifespan of the shocks.

If you are on rough NYC roads with the shocks set at double what the Koni engineers felt that car should have, you are doing no one any favors. Even if you like your car pretty aggressive, turn them back down to about 1 turn from full soft and you will probably find that the car is actually much better in many ways.

 

i ride with koni/eibach pro with some all season tires and i manage to get the rear off the ground all the time... its on softest setting too