Mary Barbara wrote :
> I should have specified that the shocks had been on the bug for 9 years,
> well over 150000 miles, and of that, 15 miles a day on bad dirt road.

   WOW

It�s just that I�ve been buying cheap aftermarket shocks myself a couple of
times and ended up with nothing but junk - and lots of work :-(

We have a really lowpriced company here in Sweden from which I bought coils
and shocks for the Rabbit diesel I had.
The car was Slooow but since I drive a lot on backroads and twotracks in
order to find somewhere to walk my dog I decided to buy "rally tested" !
They where KYB, painted yellow, stiff as a rock - and ready to change after
a year of careful driving because of leaking gaskets :-(
Even though I changed the coils at the same time !!!

But the biggest problem as I see it with cheap aftermarket parts are not so
much the guarantee - you could get new items many times - but that it so
often is a PITA to change them or pay somebody to change for you and that is
not covered for...

Calle