Recently I felt a big clunk in the rear whenever driven over my driveway, sounded like it was bottom out. So I Just installed KYBs in the rear last Friday and while the car feels more planted on the freeways or around the curves, I still hear small clunks over bumps when sitting in the back. From this, I think the KYBs are stiffer than stock (I don't remember if it was this way when It was brand new). I'd expected the original shocks were really really bad but they weren't. One has free play for about 1/2 inch at fully decompressed but both still compress with force and decompress normaly. The car has about 115k miles.
Some thing I learned from the installation, When removing (I used a hammer with a big screw driver to tap it out) the shocks from the lower stud, make sure the shocks are fully compressed (as short as possible). If not, at some point it will just stuck and if forcing it out, I was afraid it might mess up the thread of the stud. Just use your hands to compress it and quickly tap out the lower mount while it slowly decompress.
Some thing I learned from the installation, When removing (I used a hammer with a big screw driver to tap it out) the shocks from the lower stud, make sure the shocks are fully compressed (as short as possible). If not, at some point it will just stuck and if forcing it out, I was afraid it might mess up the thread of the stud. Just use your hands to compress it and quickly tap out the lower mount while it slowly decompress.
