Shock Absorbers Are So Expensive Because KYB Has Been Fixing Prices

KYB, the company that makes the shock absorbers on my car (and quite possibly on your car too), just plead guilty to fixing prices of shock absorbers here in America. They will pay $62 million in fines. Also, the way it all went down was kind of old school.

Old school in terms of financial mischief, I will say. The Department of Justice announced yesterday that KYB (that's Kayaba Industry Co. Ltd., dba) and two co-conspirators agreed on the allocation of shock absorbers in the US market, and agreed on how they would update their prices to car and motorcycle manufacturers. The goal was keeping prices up and in control, and they were successful, as the Department of Justice reports. Here's the word from the DoJ itself.

According to the information filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Ohio, KYB, based in Tokyo, and its two co-conspirators agreed to allocate the supply of shock absorbers sold and determine the price submitted to the targeted vehicle manufacturers. To keep prices up, KYB and its co-conspirators also agreed to coordinate on price adjustments requested by the vehicle manufacturers and strived to keep their conduct secret.

The directly targeted companies were Subaru, Honda, Kawasaki, Nissan, Suzuki, and Toyota. KYB had been up to this from the mid-1990s through 2012.

Read the DoJ's full report right here, and wonder no more about the cost of those AGXs you're about to stick on your 240SX.

Photo Credit: KYB

Contact the author at raphael@jalopnik.com.