Lowering springs advice

[passat123]

Not an urgent modification for me yet but MUST be done in the near future.

Just need to find a decent shop to install my Eibach lowering springs. Prefer the workshop to be reliable, reasonable labour rate and aren't sloppy.

Some shops are asking for a whole days labour $550-$680 to install them. The last time I paid to install springs was about 6 years ago, took under 2 hours for all 4 and cost $180 labour..


~35mm drop front and back with 235/35 R19.

[Mister Tee]

Not sure who you have contacted yet....if you havent already then try Volksmuller on Annangrove Rd

They installed my coilovers at a very reasonable price and set them to a perfect height....highly recommended

[brad]

Rears will take 40 minutes tops (probably 30m) say $60-80 depending on hrly rate

Fronts will take 3 hrs tops - say $300 - $360

Ideally you'll get a wheel alignment afterwards - $60 for a shonky one. $100-$140 for a decent one.

[passat123]

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I've been asking 'prestige' workshops.

I might ask the VW mechanic at Giraween, he knows his stuff and isn't a con like other shops.

Why is there such price range for wheel alignment? I thought all shops who do the laser alignment are petty much the same?

[brad]

There's a few good independants up near where you are. You've said one & Volksmuller has a good rep too.

Why the difference in prices? For a start, ask to see the "technicians" MVRIC licence. I think you'll find a fair few cheap places aren't using qualified mechanics - maybe they are perfectly good at their job & have years of experience but maybe they haven't seen an alignment machine until the week before.

Some places churn through alignments (1 booking every 15-20 minutes) & only play with the factory adjustments & then only if they are outside the green area. eg: If the LHS camber is -0.75 & the RHS is -1.00 & this is within spec they'll leave it rather than try & get the RHS camber less than the LHS.

The good guys will have a fiddle with so-called non-adjustable items (eg: ball joint nuts, knuckle joint mounts, sub-frames, strut top mounts) to try & get the ideal setting. They will also be willing to adjust within the green range to achieve an optimum result rather than near enough being good enough & through years of experience will have settings that they use that are outside the green zone but stop tyre wear or the vehicle drifting. I used to have a unique set of alignment settings & tyre pressures for 1970s Mercedes, 1970s Taragos, Holdens, Falcons & Valiants that were nothing like factory. One of the reasons I got a job working on aircraft was because the interviewer was an ex-client & I was the only person he knew that could stop the tyre wear on his fleet of 5 Geminis (Geminis used to wear on both the inside & outside of the tread - partly because GMH recommended 26psi all round for the 145r13 tyres).

As an indication, the Guy at Spinning Wheel had my mate's Polo up on the alignment hoist 3 times getting the alignment as close to perfect as possible - supposedly Polos aren't alignable beyond front toe so I assume he was having a fiddle with non-adjustable items asnobody could stuff-up the toe 3 times in a row.

If I was still doing alignments I'd be hitting people up for $100+ per alignment as well. peanuts/monkeys/etc

[sports racer]

Back when I was a lad we used a piece of string around the back wheel stretched to the front wheel to do the alignment. How times have changed.

Cheers

(Really old) Paul

[brad]

Back when I was a lad we used a piece of string around the back wheel stretched to the front wheel to do the alignment. How times have changed.

Cheers

(Really old) Paul

I used to double check all mine with a tape measure as I didn't trust the electronics of the day.

[passat123]

Any ideas what I could do if I'm not 100% satisfied with the height once the springs are installed. The Eibach are a fixed height drop (I don't want KMac or King Springs, I know they can be matched to be the same hub to guard measurement front and rear)

I don't want to fork out the cash for coil overs but I just want the front and rear hub to guard to be the same, I don't want the rear to sit on the tyres and the front to be 10mm above, I'd rather both have the same space.. Not sure if I'm explaining it clearly??

-Obvious thing would be to grind them to sit the same height BUT it's not a VL or corolla lol

[brad]

If they are too high you can get them reset lower. If they are too low you're buggered as "stretching"the spring is usually only temporary.

The springs settle a bit too - so if they look a bit tall at first they could drop a bit more in the first 12 months.