Suspension Hard Coatings

Do you like how it looks?

Are you willing to spend the money to get it done?

The answer for you personally lies in those 2 questions.

Some shock bodies and fork legs have excessive wear, which is mostly negated with hard coatings. That creates obvious performance issues.

I think a lot of forks and shock bodies are already coated internally. So bedsides getting the lower tubes coated, which in my experience makes very little difference if any, there isnt much you can do performance wise.

Will a coating like DLC lower the coefficient of friction between moving parts? Yes.

Will someone riding at a local C or B skill level be able to see any measurable performance difference? No.

You should hardcoat the shock body as a band aid fix to a body that has worn through the kashima coating, typically near the seal head, or when it gets grooved internally. It will reduce possibility of leaking at the seal head(if that’s where it is worn down) or prevent damage to the piston ring if grooved. Also if the kashima coating is worn through to raw metal, it will usually cause your oil to deteriorate quicker and need to be rebuilt more often. If there is no internal damage than the hard coat is purely for looks.

The real answer is: It depends.

If you've worn through the stock coating, you can "fix" it by getting it recoated. But then it won't be as smooth or as even of a bore. The proper solution is to get a new shock body.

"Hard coating" can mean a few things. If it's just hard anodize, then it's nothing special and just for looks. If it's Kashima or KyoKote, then there are additives that make it ultra slick. This will be a performance benefit as it reduces friction and heat.

But a shock doesn't see much of a side load, at least not compared to the forks, so reducing friction on the shock isn't nearly as important as it is on the forks. If you've done everything else to the bike and are looking for the most performance without regard to cost, then go for it! But if not, then there are much better places to spend your money.

Its a piece in the puzzle. The coatings do work; and very well. But, everything else must be spot on springs, valving, etc. Alone coatings won't beat a well tuned system, but add them, and they will enhance it. They do wear so reapplying may be an added expense to an already pricey option.

I wouldn't spend my money on that. It's so far down the line of ways to improve a bike that the juice is not worth the squeeze. You will not get that money back when you resell the bike.

If I had enough extra cash to spend on that, I certainly would. It looks trick. When my bike looks trick, I feel awesome. When I feel awesome, I go faster.
As it is, I have literally hundreds of other things to spend money on first, so I won't be doing it any time soon.

Id only do the forks because its far more obvious it was done. It freaking looks cool lol. Would I notice a difference? Maybe a placebo effect, thinking it feels better when its the same. I am not good enough