I broke a 1/2-coil of a front spring a few months ago and have been driving around on it deciding if I just wanted to replace the spring, or to use it as an excuse to replace all the dampers. The original dampers were still 'acceptable' -- they weren't worn out at 170k miles, so it was hard to justify replacing them. And for small irregularities they were still fine. However, with big road undulations and dips, it just felt like they were slow to damp. Folks keen on handling would say they got a little wallowy. After him'n and haw'n for a couple months, I just had all the dampers replaced with Koni FSDs with all new mounts/bushings/bumpers, 2 new front springs, and 2 new sway bar end links. On the ride home tonight, they were noticeably 'taught-er', without being harsh. The FSDs are dual-valved, so they handle small abrupt perturbations separately from larger perturbations. (sorry, my engineering 'dynamic systems' class is having its way with my language here) Smoothness is important to me, so the fact that I didn't have any misgivings about the tighter ride is a testimony to the civilized nature of the FSDs. I had them on my Mk4 Golf, and they were great. And r90sKirk, who has the car now with ~430k miles on the car says it's still the best-handling TDI he's driven. And those things are at least 200k old. I remember that it seemed like they took 20k miles to break in -- they started out a little harsh/taught, but smoothed out over time.