sm1ke

iTrader: (5)

I'm a little confused.. I meant that the cost to buy new shocks was close to the cost of buying an entry level set of coilovers. I wasn't talking about shop time or labor, sorry for the mix up.

supralative

iTrader: (4)

Gotcha
Oh well its the internet hahaha

they are a good deal though
but coilovers it is

jaluco559

Do you have 20's on your Lexus..? I'm looking for someone with Hotchkis lowering springs on there is250.. Do you get any rubbing..?? Did you have to do any fender mods or did you have camber wheels because I honestly dont want that look..

jaluco559

Reall talk how is the ride on Hotchkis lowering springs from stock springs is it really a huge difference or not..??? I hope my car still rides smooth and not as still as I think it will be..

FSportIS

iTrader: (13)

You can get the stock shocks cheap from classified easily from those who run on coils There are whole bunch of supplies out there.

On the other hand, servicing coil every 30k miles or so isn't cheap (couple hundreds?) plus that running on coil tend to increase the urge to go moreeee lowrrrr and then decrease the tires tread life as well so tires cost add up too.

sm1ke

iTrader: (5)

Servicing the coils every 30k miles? Personally I would only service all four coils if one has blown. I've run coilovers for two years straight, through winter and summer at the same ride height, and they have never blown on me. Keep in mind that this was on my Honda Accord V6, which is almost as heavy as the IS. I did use a different manufacturer though. My point being, if you have to send your coils in for service once every 3-4 years, its well worth it.

If you lower your car and do nothing to fix the out-of-spec suspension, then yes, your tires (and likely other suspension components) will wear faster. The key is to get a camber kit to zero out the camber, and if necessary, get a toe kit to zero out the toe, then get an alignment. On the IS, toe is adjustable to a small degree, so lowering your car about an inch means that they can still zero out the toe when you go for an alignment.

Like anything, with proper maintenance, you avoid a lot of these issues. If you lower your car, get an alignment. Rotate your tires to get the most out of them, and also to check for abnormal tire wear. Check your shocks/coils once every few months to look for leaks. This is all stuff you should be doing anyway as routine maintenance.

FSportIS

iTrader: (13)

Yep, maintenance is required no matter what we run. However, for springs/shocks, if my shocks go out, I can buy good used OEM shocks cheap from members who run on coils.

Regarding the tires, what you said is true when you don't slam your car. When you go aggressive and slam your car with coil, you will run crazy negative camber on the rear and your tires won't last long.

Also, I'm not sure if it is just me. When I heard the brand "Hotchkis" I thought of "Hot Chick" . When I first heard this brand, I thought this spring is chick magnet or something and that everyone wants it.

sm1ke

iTrader: (5)

But that's assuming the owner slams his/her car and is also using aggressive wheels. You can slam your car on conservative wheels and then run camber/toe kits to bring everything back to OEM spec, and there would be no issues with abnormal tire wear. Even if you run aggressive wheels, you can still zero everything out, but it will also require fender modifications.

There are far more advantages to running coils than there are to running springs on OEM shocks. OEM shocks are meant to be used with the OEM/F-Sport springs only. Any other springs will reduce the wear life of the shock.

Coilovers are also valved according to the spring rate, assuming you get the off-the-shelf setup the manufacturer provides, or you have the manufacturer re-valve the dampers for the new spring rates. What this amounts to is that you will likely be replacing your OEM shocks more frequently than servicing your coilovers.

Then there's also the adjustability of the coilover to fine tune the ride quality. With a spring/shock setup, you're stuck with one ride height, and one level of quality. It's perfect if the ride height and quality is exactly what you want, but a person's tastes can change very quickly, which again, is where coilovers shine.