New Springs & Such

[Zchild]

Hey gear-heads, cruisers and redline abusers, I need some suggestions or advice. My bimmer has 164,000 on it as I speak. I am starting to feel it flatening out over bumps in the shock absorbers area. Therefore, I will be buying new shocks and such, probably H&R. While searching for shocks and such I found that I can get new springs, sport shocks and lower my ride. My question is how much should I consider lowering it... Who has lowered their ride and what can I expect at different ride heights. Lastly, what brands would you recommend. Thanks in advance for your input, Happy Motoring... [driving2]

 

[///M SPEED]

Depends on what you want, but I want something in the lines of the BILSTEIN PSS9 Coil Overs. I really haven't looked into it either, but the Koni's are pretty good as well. I would look to maybe lower it no more than half-inch front back and at the most one inch in the rear. Anything lower than that and your just wasting your suspension or will have the wheels up in the wheel well....

There is really many options you can go with. Some here may have more/better advice, but I wouldn’t go extreme with the drop….

Good luck...

 

[Big Daddy]

Too much drop will give you a drastic negative camber and you will wear your tries out on the inside twice as fast as the outside. I had H&R's and removed them, too low and too harsh. I now have Dinan suspension and Koni adjustables on the roadster. Nice ride and excellent handling!

 

[Wadula]

i agree that too low is no-go. not that it really harms the car, it just looks crappy. id lower the car like ´BMW does stockwise with their performance packages and M-suspension. max 1 inch. and don´t lower the rear more than the front. when you look at it, the rear is already lower and if you do anything at all you should try to level that. front slightly lower than rear.

against increased tire wear and camber problems you can (and should) have an alignment done. that will give you a proper wheel setup with the lowerance. and, you said your car has 164000 miles on it? you might consider that everything ages...even the chassis of a bimmer. the older the car gets the less it can take really deep and hard shocks. the road bumps will have to be taken by the whole chassis...makes it weaker and weaker you know? just keep it reasonable and you´ll be fine