I am going down to a local shop tommorow to order a set of tein cs coilovers with edfc. I am looking at about 2500 dollars for parts , install and alignment. I was just on a 2IS forum and saw a thread were members were stating that geberally coilovers need to be rebuilt every 40-50k miles? Is this true ? Has anyone heard the same thing? I dont want to spend that kind of money to be swapping out entire suspensions every 2 years for rebuilds of the coilovers. I am a professional not a mechanic. I dont have time for that crap. If that is truely the case I will stick with my stock shocks and very soft tein h techs. I am pretty sure I can get 100k out of that set up if not more before they need to go. I am going to call tein in the morning to verify.

 

I have put about 15,000 miles on my Tein SS coilovers! They still run great!

I'll call Tein also, I have some questions, each Tein coilover rebuild thread on CL doesn't get post's.

 

Depends how you drive. I've heard reports of Tein coilovers lasting past 75k miles.

 

when I spoke to the guy at TEIN today he told me gas seen some flex coilovers come in for rebuild at 100k miles. Generally they recommend service/rebuild every 50k miles for max performance. I am surprised to find that the factory shocks will last longer than the aftermarket shocks. I keep thinking of maybe just changing out the springs to the nf210 or tein s tech. The problem is that I will still have the prob with the left side of the car being lower than the right. I can fix this by swapping left to right, but I want to go lower and I want to get the car to handle better.

 

fix what by swapping left to right. are you saying that if you swap springs from left to right it will fix it? How do you figure? They are all the same spring. It is the left side of the car that weighs more.

 

Even with my coilovers the left sags a bit but you can't notice it!

I might adjust the coilovers but thats how the car is!

 

Any kind of shock regardless if it's factory or aftermarket, it will need servicing or replacement. It's almost like a ticking time bomb, you just don't know when you'll need to replace them, which is why it's imperative to keep an eye out on them for unusually or excessive fluid leakage during the course of time. Everyone has different driving styles and drives on difference road conditions.

Unfortunately no one makes an aftermarket shock for the 3GS, which is why I went with coilovers again. Unfortunately, coilovers need servicing too. If this was a perfect world, I would go with an aftermarket shock/spring combo rather than coilovers, especially with long distance driving.

 

man I am tempted to stick with the factory shocks and the ultra soft and ulta conservative h techs. The ride quality in my car is better than my wifes acura TL. This car and its soft *** suspension set up are pulling me into the world of comfort. I am concerned that I will be dropping 2k on the tanabe coilovers and I will end up dropping the car less that.5 inches more than what I have currently and will ruin the ride quality. I can set the shocks to soft but I am wondering if the coilovers are the best way to go. The ability to raise and lower the car is nice initially, but after a couple of adjustments thats it. The shock setting adjustment is cool bec you can change the attitude of the car, but at basically double the spring rates I currently have.

 

The left side of the car sits lower than the right side when the car is empty. This is because the drivers weight on that side of the car causes more settling (metal fatigue)in the left sided springs. So by switching the springs left to right you will have the slightly higher springs on the left side of the car. So after another 10k miles the weight of the driver will compress the springs down ,like the previously left sided springs, and even the ride height. I spoke to a guy at a shop and he confirmed that this is a common problem, especially with big guys like myself( He also said it is a common prob with jeeps and some suv's. The other option is to frequently take your car when you go out and the weight of the passengers will help to even the springs.The other night I had my 3 cousins in the car , all of which are big guys ( one of them was in the past 2 olympics as a US national waterpolo player and the other is 6'8" and 340 lbs), and I swear when I got back home the left side had settled a little more. And that was after one night of cruising around. The prob is that most drivers drive in the car alone. This causes a chronic weight distribution issue and will cause the left side springs to settle further. Even in motor trend magazine they give skid pad results for the car turning left and right. There is always a lower g rating for when the car turns to the right bec of the weight of the driver that loads the suspension on the left side sooner and causes earlier traction loss and a lower skid pad number. So very simple solution is to switch the springs. My left side sags to the point that my steering wheel is turned slightly to the right when I am going straight. I had the same problem in my G35 sedan. The swap is alot cheaper than coilovers. It sucks being 6'5" and 300lbs. But in the words of Tony Soprano..." It is what it is". I may just do the swap of the springs and do a body kit. decisions ..decisions..decisions