Originally Posted by
Robert Taylor
I stand resoutely by everything I have said, Ive been in the suspension trade for a very long time, I think I can differentiate quality.
Ohlins is a very transparent company compared to most and a number of people that read this post will recall that Ive always been up front where their Road and Track forks have been made, Japan ( a little bit distinct from mainland Asia )
Ohlins make a lot of suspension units as oem supply for manufacturers , yes. This mainly for those manufacturers high spec models where often a lesser spec model exists with lower spec suspension , eg Sachs, Showa etc. But certainly higher quality and function.
For many years Ohlins major shareholder was Yamaha Motor Co, finishing up at 95% shareholding with Kenth Ohlin having the remaining 5%. This was by and large a very productive relationship. YMC is a very big company with lots of interests that go beyond the motorcycle industry. They also are the major shareholder in another Japanese company, Soqi, a suspension manufacturer. 2 things came out of this that we are familiar with here in NZ;
1) Road and Track forks, these still being built for oem supply as Ohlins branded forks. Great forks but the valving can be improved somewhat for our high proportion of bumpy roads. Compared to an oem product such as KYB / Showa / Sachs its a much better product. Still ''expensive'' because they are produced and assembled in Japan where quality control is something that is taken seriously and their workers are paid well ( Im moralising here and not apologising for it ) Aftermarket Ohlins forks are now wholly produced in Sweden and they are a new generation thats much better again than the Road and Track forks we are most familiar with.
2) Ohlins branded car shocks that arrive here in Japanese import cars. This blatantly is a badging exercise as the shocks are wholly produced in Japan by Soqi and were intended for the Japanese domestic market only, never intended for export by a gentlemans agreement. That is until the embracement of the free market and large numbers of grey imports arriving in RH drive markets such as NZ, South Africa etc. Whilst not as good as the genuine Swedish offerings they are still a very very good product and Ive been repeatedly told by my car customers that send these in for service that they are right up there at the top in terms of performance and quality.
Ohlins Sweden have just now started building a new range of car shocks, still made in Japan but a whole new very high quality design and wholly developed in Sweden. These are an extremely nice looking product.
Relevant to point out that just a little over two years back Kenth Ohlin largely bought out Yamahas shareholding, the ratio now being Kenth Ohlin 95%, YMC 5%. So waht was a largely Japanese company operating almost autonomously in Sweden is now largely a Swedish company.
Having travelled to Sweden at least 10 or more times I have gotten to know their pysch very very well. They are well groomed, well disciplined with lots of pride, very well educated, are top heavy with engineers and have a very keen sense and in fact total desire for quality. Price is not the overwhelming preoccupation. But what also stands out is that they have a keen sense of social justice. Im prepared to eat humble pie later on but I dont forsee any time soon that they will shift production to the ''slave labour rate'' economies so prevalent in mainland Asia ( yes Im moralising again )
As an interesting aside approximately 7% of the worlds economy is piracy and the highest percentage of that comes from Asia. Ohlins have an employee that spends part of her time tracking these rip off merchants and there were blatant copies of Ohlins steering dampers being made in Thailand. Looked like the product to an ''average punter'' but worked like crap.
Yes every manufacturer does indeed cut corners when manufacturers supply a price point target, but to split hairs its a real insight into the mentality of the manufacturer just how they go about cutting corners. Ive seen some pretty dodgy stuff in a lot of shocks, even mid price. But by and large Ohlins will not cross the line for the simple expedient of making money, they have a solid and well earned reputation to upkeep.
About 4 or 5 years back Toyota Racing here in NZ asked me to quote on shock absorbers for their TRS racing series cars. I provided a very keen quote for purpose built Ohlins formula car dampers that would have done the job admirably. I didnt get the order , the then Ohlins distributor in Italy got the order and they happened to be just a few doors down from the chassis manufacturer Tatuus. Subsequently all the TRS chassis arrived in the country with these Italian built ''Ohlins'' shocks. It was almost straight away that I was recieving complaints from teams, ''these shocks arent working, cant match the clickers side to side, mine are leaking'' etc etc. So I had some sent to me and was horrified as they had only 20% Ohlins content in them, the pistons and valving were totally unsuitable for aero function downforce cars ( short stroke, high force ) and the parts that they had made looked like they came from a rural workshop in China. I ''hit the roof'' as shocks being passed off as Ohlins landed in the market that Im the Ohlins distributor for. So I got on the phone to Ohlins that evening and sent lots of images as proof. Within a matter of only 2 to 3 weeks Ohlins made the Italian distributor pay me 5000 Euros to contribute to the total reconstruction of the shocks and they then promptly canned that distributor. JUSTICE. Toyota Racing had to cough up for the rest ( 90 or so dampers were involved ) and that to me made a statement . ''you wanted cheap, well you are now paying for that folly''
Ohlins, just like WP and Penske are very serious about quality. Last year delivery dates were getting put back by what ended up as being months for MX steering dampers and we ( CKT ) were getting it in the kneck for being ''useless''. These dampers were delayed because Ohlins quality control department were constantly rejecting successive batches of the main damper body parts as they were dissatisfied with the tolerancing or more pointedly stability of that tolerancing as the alloy material aged. This company is very very particular about quality and its hard to imagine by and large mainland Asian companies having such admirable qualities. More like theyd send it out in the market anyway and then fob off the cissues as they occured. Come to think of it there have been a lot of issues with the rotary MX damper knockoffs made in mainland Asia.
Of course no-one in the street is going to get the very very top Ohlins gear as used by Rossi, Lorenzo, Davizioso and Pedrosa ( Team Yamaha and Team Honda ) Thats a 500,000 euro contract per MotoGP season per rider. But that leads to an interesting and very relevant point. Ohlins R&D facilities are huge and they have another effective laboratory by being right at the very pinnacle in road racing, MX and car racing in various classes. That technology trickles through to the man in the steet and to that end the followers ( who are not innovators ) are in the end event not even on the same page. That will becoming even more apparent in the years to come with more and more electronics in bike control.
You pay your money and you make your choice, I have no doubt there will be further racing success for that Asian brand in NZ but apples for apples, excellent setup for excellent setup, same rider the three leading brands will work better.
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