After I put the Tein H-Tech's on the SC, I am having a little issue;

The driver's side rear is sitting about .5-.75" lower than the right side. The fronts are even. When driving and I hit a bump it feels like the whole rear end of ther car gets squirelly and dog tracks. I double checked and everything seems to be fine. I only removed the sway bar, shock bolt, and lower out control arm bolt to remove the shock to swap the springs so nothing else should have moved.

Please give me some possible ideas or things to check out....

 

I think it is normal.
I remenber my rear passager's side sits about .5" higher than the rest.

 

Well that comforts me a bit. I know they were installed correctly because I have done about 50 sets of springs/coil-overs and I definitely took my time.

This still doesnt explain the scary feeling of how the car unsettles after hitting a bump. I dont even feel safe driving it so it is parked in the garage.

 

I believe the stock suspension doesn't give you an even height on 4 cornors, either. It is hard to tell since the wheel gap is so big. lol

I had Tein-Tech springs before and Tein CST coilovers now.
Your deteriorating ride quality has something to do with that combination.
Stock shocks do get old and worse with or without the Tein springs.
Those Tein springs just accelerate the process.
I know that feelings of our cars hitting a bump with Tein H and I think Tein S springs are even worse.

I think it is still wiser to invest in coilovers instead.
Trust me, you won't regret it.

 

I may do that, but for now I'd like to at least be able to drive it. The car only has 30K on it so the shocks should still be pretty good. I can't imagine that anyone else could drive their car like this and others have used Teins with stock shocks. Something has to be wrong, but I just dont know where to start.

 

how long has it been. have they settled yet? also are the springs sitting in the grooves? maybe one side is and the other isnt thus would give un even height

 

I would also check the spring perches like Tonydt1g3r said and anytime you lower a car you will need to get it aligned. My car drove pretty crappy until I took it to Daren at West End Alignment in Torrance. If you're in the SoCal area, I highly recommend taking it to him. He will also be able to corner weight your car so if you have a bad spring, it should be very apparent..

Oh and the stock shocks are pretty weak, esp if you have some miles on the car. My fronts were wasted and man did switching to a set of Bilsteins make the car handle like its on rails. Big time change in the way the car handles, with no other mods to the suspension. Ditch the stock shocks...

 

I had the exact same feeling when I changed my suspension. Alignment helped a lot but it didn't feel right until the tire wear caught up with the alignment. It took less than a week in my case.

 

My experience has been that different springs on stock shocks never work well. I tried that on BMW's and it was not great. You get into shock valving which is specific to the spring used and all the other elements that went into the design of that original spring/ shock setup. You are bottoming out probably because the bump stop in the shock is set up for the stock springs. Don't know if that can be adjusted. I've had a much better outcome using a spring and shock combo that was designed to work together.

BT

 

It could be an issue with the shock going bad. I had the exact same issue with my Z when I put the Hotchkis kit on. It turned out that I had an issue with one of the rear shocks not compressing correctly. Repalced the shocks and now the rear is perfectly even. It did drive me crazy for a while. I kept switching the springs from side to side to see if I had a softer spring because everone kept saying that the spirngs dictate the ride height and shock have no effect. Apparently if one is failing it will effect the final resting height.

Cheers

 

Thanks for the shock advice....Does anyone know a good place to get new OEM shocks?

 

Try Sewell Lexus

Sewell Lexus

 

actually on all lexus, they are never the same height (wheel gap wise at least) left and right, even from factory. just that when it's stock, the gap is so big you don't notice. but if you lower the car you start to see the difference. so if you put the same lowering spring left and right, one side is going to be lower than the other

that's why i have coilover to eliminate that issue