In March of this year, KW made the changeover of its complete production of its Coilovers to the new reference standard Inox Line. This proved to be quite an undertaking, requiring a huge amount of resources involving a multitude of changes and investments. The first kits rolled out of assembly in late 2000, and it was clear that this was truly a milestone event. Even with the known corrosion resistance characteristics of the new housings, not even the experts could have predicted the extreme results that would come of the harsh testing to come.

A more extensive test was performed to DIN 50021 SS standards at Chrom Schall, in Simaringendorf, to document the impressively high level of corrosion resistance of the Inox line vs. the competitions galvanized units available on the market today. Coilovers from six different manufactures were compared in the 480-hour Salt spray testing.

During the testing, the samples were inspected at pre assigned intervals of 48 hours, 150 hours, 336 hours and 408 hours to document the progression of the corrosion of the Coilover kits. Included in the samples were an original KW galvanized housing, for comparative testing for our past products and customers.



The struts were sprayed in a controlled chamber with salt water for 480 hours, which corresponds with two average winters in an average four-season climate, representing approximately 30,000KM of road use. After only 48 hours, the first signs of rust showed up on all of the galvanized systems, in the threads, clamps, and mounting points.