After recently changing to 19" rims, I noticed that my front wheel gap is much wider than rear wheels. It's around 4 fingers in front vs 2.5fingers at the rear.

My friend has a spare set of tanabe lowering springs lying around.

Can I just use the lowering springs on the front suspension while leaving the rear stock?
What implications are there to the ride quality and handling of the car?

Purpose is to keep the ride soft because I often take 4 passengers.

 

not a good idea.

1) your going to have multiple spring rates
2) your going to create rake on your car
3) its going to look silly
4) your front struts will eventually fail quicker than the rears
5) it will actually increase your rear wheel gap because of the rake

the list goes on

 

You can swap out just the front springs if you're only doing it for looks. Springs come in various stiffness, so answer your question about ride quality and handling, no one knows. Not too many people here swap out the fronts for Tanabe springs, let alone the front springs themselves.

If it's just for daily driving and you don't plan on pushing the car hard(er), you probably won't have much of an issue.

 

Which tanabes? If it's the NF you probably wont notice a huge difference in ride quality. It might look a little funny, but if you like the raked look it wont hurt anything.

Stiffer front springs without stiffer rears will induce more understeer. If it's only a slight change, like the NF, it shouldn't be too noticeable.

 

Uh........No!!! The car would look like a retro HotWheels! if you want to lower the car and maintain rise quality the best bet is coilovers!

 

I cannot recommend this. Before anything this is a LEXUS a proper luxurious sport sedan. Do you think Lexus would put 2 different springs on it?

Sounds like you need coilovers.

 

I assume that you have an AWD model ? Since, the gaps on RWD cars are the same on all 4 corners. If that's the case, then putting any lowering springs will lead to vibrations.

 

Guys, he has more gap in the front than the rear and all he's going to do is try to even it out by dropping the front more. Getting coilover is not a cheap solution if it's going to lower the front just the same amount as what the Tanabe will give him.

As far as two different spring rates, the stock spring rates are different front vs rear anyways. Tanabe springs in general are not much stiffer than stock so you're not really risking anything here. If the springs are a lot stiffer, then I would stay away since that combo could lead to heavy understeer.

 

Pick up some SAGE RCA spacers. There is someone else that did this a few months ago.

 

This is the best recommendation here.

 

I 3rd this since this will achieve what you want and you still have the stock suspension.

 

and you do realize that if you lower just the front that the rear will not stay in the same spot. if you drop the front, the rear will raise

 

with a conservative drop, ride isn't bad at all imo.. even had 5 passengers before, no complaints here..

 

We're talking about such a small magnitude in change that it's negligible. I've lowered and raised my front end multiple times and the rear gap does not change. The front and rear weight distribution will still be the same so the rear springs is still going to get compressed the same amount. You see guys on air suspension raise and lower one end of the car with no change in the other end, and that's with at least 4" in height adjustment. 0.75" or so won't do much.

 

Be careful with the RCA though. Get an alignment afterwards and have them try to reduce negative camber because you will get a slight increase depending on how thick the RCAs are.