Shock absorbers Rancho or KONI

I went with Koni Super active as an "upgrade" from oem and I'm very happy with those.

I have mildly upgraded shocks (koni active) but otherwise stock and the ride quality is pretty good

I've been running them on my MK6 for about 40K miles. I'll never go back to standard shocks and struts. The adaptive dampening is a huge benefit on freeway drives since the expansion joints are completely removed from the ride. They are solid and planted for everyday driving and I've never felt the car was unstable.

I'm running Koni special actives on stock springs with 17" tires. There are a few threads over at https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/index.php where it's pretty much agreed that they are OEM+. I put them in about a year ago and they are still great.

I have them on my ‘15 and I really like them so far. I’ve done 11k miles since I put them on. They are stiffer than oem but they soften up nicely with large impacts.

+1 on the Koni Special Active, very comfortable ride. I kept my 17" wheels and upped the tires to 215/45R17 non-runflats, slightly wider and slightly more sidewall, much less stiff due to it not being runflat.

Koni special active (red) make a great difference. Had the yellows; really sharp. But the reds corner flatter and i can take corners faster. Car honestly feels like its way more modern.

The Koni Special Actives with Eibach Pro package is the best overall ride for S197 platform. It even comes with bump stops.

I’ve got rancho on my stock height xj right now and it’s not bad by any means but I don’t have anything to compare it to besides the blown OEM shocks that they replaced a few months back.

Replacing the shocks with Konis voids your drivetrain warranty. I had a local shop do this same swap on a new 24 MYLR. A month later the front motor stripped the splines off of both half shafts. Not only did Tesla rule that just the presence of the Konis voided the motor/half shaft warranty, they wouldn't do the repair unless they replaced the Konis with OEM shocks. I appealed up the chain but no luck. An $8K learning experience. Really rides well, though.