Greetings fellow gs owners, I just purchased a 98 gs400 and I love it! I've been coming here for about 8 months but now I can call myself a member of ClubLexus. Anyways, I am definately going to lower the car but I have questions concerning coilovers. If you had the coilovers on for awhile and the shocks need to be replaced, can you take the shocks out of the coil or the whole coilover has to be replaced? Do you have to have the wheels aligned each time you raise or lower the car? I hope these questions aren't in previous posts.

Any info would be great!

Thanks

 

Congrats on your purchase, and welcome.
There are both types of coilovers on the market, those with the threaded sleeve permanently mounted to the shock body, and those in which you are able to change out the shock body. IMO, the permanent types are generally the higher quality ones, but there are other folks here that have much more experience with specific brands, so I'll let them address which ones they like.
As far as the alignments go, you can usually get away with lowering your car a small amount without having to realign, but each case will be different. However, if you really wan't to take advantage of the range of a coilover, you will have to have things aligned. After that, if you just make minor adjustments up or down you shouldn't have to re-align, but make any significant changes and you will.
Again, IMO, since I drive a Lexus, I'd want to maintain the best possible ride, so any lowering I did, I'd probably have things checked just to be sure.
Hope this helps some, and like I said, others here have more experience with coilovers than I do, so I'm sure you'll get more responses.
Cheers,

 

tlex,

welcome.

if you opt for either the BILSTEINS coilovers or HRs, they both provide lifetime warranty, so chances are you will not have any worries. if they do wear out prematurely, the co would just give you w new one(assuming you did not go off-road, or abuse the ride). and alignment is laways recommended. for $60-100, it is worth it.

i can get you prices on either, PM me.

will

 

Hey,
Thanks for the information guys. It looks like I might be going with the coilovers. I know there's quite a few systems out there but don't know which would suite me best. I just want a street application and not race application or to that extreme. I don't plan on slamming it more than 2 inches. I know that some systems have shorter rods. Does that effect comfortness?

Once again, thanks for any info.