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| KW’s engineering garages are clean and well organized. Cars are measured for suspension stroke and shock length and for maximum angularity of components. Bump steer and alignment are also checked. Cars are weighted down and measured for TUV clearance checks as well here. |
KW added engineering capacity to enable them to design coil over suspensions to meet Germany’s stringent TUV standards for full street legality. Finally KW made the jump to world class manufacturing and quality control, obtaining ISO/QS 9000 and TS16949 certification, the holy grail of quality which enabled them to become a supplier to the OEM world. The same quality standards are also applied to their aftermarket business.
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| Some of the cars in the engineering shops are pretty exotic and belong to secret OEM customers. We were drooling at this! |
After spending some time in Germany, we began to understand why KW components work so well and how their corporate culture came to be. Germany is the home of the Autobahn. These are freeways with no speed limits. We spent plenty of time on the Autobahn and we did not ever go below 120 mph except for times of rush hour traffic. Most of the time we spent at speeds of 130 to 140 mph, in a van, a van packed full of people and luggage. We were for sure not the fastest drivers on the Autobahn, more like typical. At these speeds, plenty of other people were flying by us.
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| Part of TUV testing requires that the car be loaded to a little more than maximum capacity and checked for dangerous bottoming out conditions and wheel clearance. Even though the car is lowered it must maintain a safe ride height and suspension travel when fully loaded. This car is being checked in the engineering garage for TUV ride height compliance. |
If you can imagine the magnitude of this, think about it, if your modded street car or even race car was driven flat out all the time for miles without relief, how long would it last? The Autobahn may just be the ultimate test of durability. Many Germans spend a lot of time at race car speeds. If this was allowed in America, can you imagine the carnage that would result? Because of this, Germans are quite serious about their cars, inspections and maintenance. They are also pretty serious about the quality of aftermarket parts. A failure can mean spectacular death for many people.
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| This weight is used for TUV ride height compliance testing. Note the corner scales used to place the weight correctly. |
