Dealer Won't lower car?
 

I went to my lexus dealer today to get my rims put on and i talked to the suspension guy and he was going to lower the car for me. I left the car overnight and came to pick it up this morning and the service representitive told me that the shop foremen said it could not be done? So they put the car on the lift and i pointed out the sensors. The suspension guy knew what i was talking about he said he has done it before. But the shop foreman said that it would affect the way the headlights moved or somthing like that? anyone know what the hell this guy is talking about or is he just busting my chops. Evreyone on the forum says its an easy job but i don;t have the equipment to do it. I'm just suprised that they wouldn't touch it. The car isn't even under waranty anymore.

They should have done it for you. I'm not exactly sure what the headlight sensors would have done after the drop. But you should find somone local or a shop that would install the springs for you.

Here's the deal most lexus dealers are not going to lower/alter any car, they want you to drive it the way lexus designed them...find a local shop and drop it like it's hot:thumbup:

x2.

I dont know if you are stretching your tires or not but most places will give you a huge lecture followed by a no also. I learned some places will do it if you just bring wheels in, so your not driving out of there shop...

dealer doesn't wanna be reliable if something went wrong.,
just find a mechanic shop to do it.

you have to recalibrate your headlight leveling system after it's lowered. jsut get a regular shop to install your springs and then go to lexus andhave them calibrate your leveling system.

No need to re-aim the lights, the car does it for you automatically.

While techinically the senors governing the height is also used by your lights, the method we use just tricks the sensor, and does not alter it, so your lights will not be affected. The car will just think its lower, and aim the headlights higher to compensate.

From my own experience on lowering my UL. Since we all know all UL come stock from the factory with the front end of the car sitting way higher then the back, when I lowered the front end of my UL to make it slightly lower then the rear end to give it that rake to the rear look, the auto leveling headlights try to do it's job and adjust higher, but the highest setting is still aiming too low. So in my case, I do have to manually adjust the headlights to make them aim properly again.

The reason the dealer won't adjust the height sensors was just because most dealers don't like to alter cars from their stock specs.

this is true. i just like to do it the right way and have the sensors adjusted to the new ride height so the actual headlamp motors aren't maxed out just to keep them level.

So how much can i lower the car (front and rear) with out maxing out the headlight motors and still give it a nice look? Will the diffrence in height affect the ride of the car?

i'm not really sure how low you could go but i think any standard aftermarket drop spring will be fine. the height doens't affect the ride as much as the new spring rate. any aftermarket lowering springs has a stiffer spring rate than stock, this will make your ride stiffer. most springs for an LS though are still pretty soft imo. i dont' think you'd complain since your'e already considering the drop.

My 06 UL is riding on air suspension no spring replacement is needed.

oh.... so how did you want them to lower it? if you're on factory air and want to go with a suspension controller, you will definitley get a ride quality change.

There are 4 sensors that can be adjusted to lower the height of the car, but the mesurements must be exact or the car will ride awful and look awful as well.

I don't have an exact measurement for you as I didn't measure anything, I just adjusted the height sensor until the car looks good.

Basically I lowered the front to the lowest it would go with the stock height sensor rod, which is not that low at all, just slightly lower then a stock Euro sport suspension.

So even with my very mild lowering, the headlights are maxed out to it's highest setting. I had to adjust my lights to aim them higher.

In general, the lower the car, the firmer/harsher it rides.