Hi, I am thinking of buying some tanabe's and am wondering how many of you installed your own springs, and how difficult it was. I do most my own maintence but just wanted some input before I leap into it.

 

It's very easy if you have the spring compressor to compress the spring and know what you're doing. If you haven't done it before I don't recommend it since you have to compress the springs and if you do something wrong the spring might hit something in it's way with force up to 1k lbs. I usually do my own stuff on my car like changing brakes, exhaust, intake, but I'm just too scared to change my own springs.

 

I just did mine last night. Pretty simple if you have a spring compressor as mentioned above. Fronts are CAKE. 3 bolts on the top which you access from the engine compartment, then u have one one bolt to drop down the torsion bar, one bolt accross the bottom of the shock absorber and one small bolt to disconnect a small bracket that holds on the wire for the TPMS sensor. Then you just take off the shock and spring in one piece. Thats where the spring compressor comes in, you have to compress the spring enough that when you remove the top bolt on the shock, the spring doesnt uncompress and fly across the room. Same procedure to put back together.

Now the back is a bit of a PAIN the first time you do it, but its very do-able. There are two bolts that are a PAIN in the *** to get off to be able to push down on the A-arm to get the shock/spring out. You have to go through your trunk to take off the top bolt of the cup that holds the spring on the shock. After you have the bolts that hold the shock to the a-arm, you push down on it and take out the shock/spring assembly. same procedure to install.

Its a bit harder then what it sounds, but with some patience, you can get it done. My friend and i, did the install in 3hours from beginning to finish.

Hope that helps.

Alex