yelnats

Hey I just lowered my car with brabus springs and shocks with #1 pads all around and got some issues.

First the springs lowered my front end but my back end seems to remain the same height as before. Secondly i have an uneven front end drop where my passenger side is a bit lower compared to my driver side.

I purchased the brabus suspension used and the previous owner had them installed for approx. 7000 km. My question is are the springs going to settle or am I going to be stuck with the drop as it is now because im not really happy that the back end remained the same height and with my uneven front end drop. Also could my shop have installed the springs incorrectly to cause these issues?

Here are some pics.

Before drop


After


Before


After


Front. If you look closely you can tell that the passenger side is slightly lower compared to the driver side, there is a slight slant.

sick430

springs may need to settle a little bit and for the front you may need to change a spring pad out! that's you you have them to adjust the ride height

dlbehrns

you must have bought the springs from the fella in Vancouver. Good guy. I exchanged a few emails w/him. do you have the OEM springs and pads and do you know which pad came from which corner? I haven't checked this out but I've read the the pad number is determined by the number of bumps on the top of the pad. what I am getting at is, check the old front pads to see if they are the same. grasping at straws. what grill is that please?

yelnats

Ya I bought them locally off Tery, he's a good guy. To answer your questions, on my stock suspension I had #3 pads up front and #1 pads in the rear and the grill was purchased from ebay. It is the black 3 fin grill.

A1EK

Dont worry there are many people who have had this same issue where one side seems lower then the other. You probably find that your car wsa like this all along before you lowered it, but now that you have the gap is more noticable againts the wheel arch., I know CLKFAN on this forum I think had the same issue as you he just put a thicker pad on the corner that was abit low. The pads are cheap enough and you sould buy a couple of sizes to try. Remeber to get your alignment checked after the pad is put on.
I Would recommend either a no# 2 pad or maybe no#3 to get the car height perfect.

One other possiblity check that the front coil springs are the same way around, as I have seen upside down springs and they make the car higher as they sit differetly ! (check the writing is the easiest way)

Good Luck

dv-12

Wasn't this car for sale before? I could of sworn i saw a post on cl. send me a pm if you're still selling I might be interested. thanks.

threestarchrome

i cut my springs on billistien heavy duty rides great i rather cut because the stock coils are thicker than the after market lowering springs

clk clk boom

[quote=threestarchrome;3981926] i cut my springs on billistien heavy duty rides great i rather cut because the stock coils are thicker than the after market lowering springs

how man coils did you cut front and back to get that stance?..and what size rims and tires are those just trying to get an idea for mine

threestarchrome

i cut 1 and a half coil infront and 1 in rear 17 inch rims 235 /40/17

Ghostrider

You need to find a flat surface. The road has a crown to it and your car will always lean in the opposite direction of the crown. If you were to park the car in the same spot but in the other direction it would lean towards the driver's side.

falls profet

Do like all the others and check your spring pads. Also make SURE that the springs are set perfectly in the right place.

In the rocker arms (my verbage may be off...), there is a groove in there that the end (tip) of the spring has to set in just right, or your cars height can stay high just like how your car appears to be.

This happend to me the first time around installing my springs with my mechanic and it will throw everything off.

yelnats

Ya im getting my suspension reinstalled by a second shop next sat as the first shop most likely installed them incorrectly causing the uneven drop. Will report back when the suspension is redone to show the difference. Thanks for all advice.

Josh K

Don't be surprised if the problem isn't fixed. One purpose of the spring pads is to even out the gaps; installing the same number spring pad all around essentially defeats the purpose of the shims.

It's not out of the ordinary to see cars come from the factory with even ride height due to a different spring pad on every corner. I had to go with a 4 on the drivers side front and a 2 on the passenger front to obtain an even gap.

yelnats

Well now my rear suspension is squeaking like crazy at low speeds or bumps on the road. I don't think this is normal.

dlbehrns

but is the car even?

yelnats

No its not even yet, haven't taken the car to the new shop to get the suspension redone, that will happen on sat. Just noticed that my rear suspension is squeaking now from the original install.

yelnats

Okay so I got my car back today from a new shop that re-installed my suspension and wow the difference is amazing. The rear sits low now and the drop is even. There is no more suspension squeaking and the ride quality is much better, handles better and is less bouncy. In other words, it looks and rides like how I thought it would be when purchasing the brabus springs and shocks.

It turns out that the shop that did the initial installation royally ****ed up. First, they messed up installing the shocks. They installed the rear shocks on the front passenger side and the the passenger side rear had front shocks installed. Secondly, the driver side spring was not sitting in the exact position in the pad. Lastly, the right rear spring was sitting on the original number 3 pads instead of number 1 pad which i provided them. All of this caused the car to be uneven, to ride horribly and the suspension to squeak.

I am going to bring my car back to the initial shop that ****ed up installing the suspension and see if i can get some of my money back. Has anybody experienced something like this before? Am i entitled to get some of my money back because they screwed up?

yelnats

I don't have my digital camera with me so I took some pics with my phone. This is how it looks now. As you can see the rear is sitting low now, about 1 finger gap lower than the front. Before the rear was sitting 1 finger gap higher than the front. I wonder if I should go padless upfront the make it more even?


I am going to purchase rear spacers to kick out the wheels. Does anyone know what size I should get without rubbing? 15mm?

vizionclk430

looking good if you get spacers go with the h&r dra series that bolt to the car then you bolt the wheel to the spacer instead of using longer bolts like other spacers. there is 25.4mm in a inch so just measure your gap between the tire and 1/4.

dlbehrns

If you had taken your car back to the original shop and gave them a chance to fix it I think they would be understanding however you didn't afford them the chance. If it were my shop I wouldn't give you any money back. Not trying to be a dick but can you see it from the original shops point of view?

yelnats

Actually i did give them a chance to fix it. I brought my car back to them on wednesday explaining to them that my suspension was starting to squeak and that I had a feeling the suspension was installed incorrectly from the replies i got from this thread and from tery who i bought the suspension from who is also a member here.

The owner of the shop put my car on a hoist and examined it for about 45 mins and told me that my passenger side rear spring was not sitting on the pad correctly so he fixed it. I took the car back and test drove it in a parking lot right after and the suspension was still squeaking. I drove back to the shop and told the owner and he came with me for a test drive so he could hear the noise. After the test drive he put my car back on the hoist and said that the squeaking is probably coming from my shocks, claiming that they were most likely shot since I bought them used from a forum member. He said I can bring my car back next week and he would install my original shocks back on to see if that was the problem. The owner kept insisting that they installed the springs and shocks correctly saying that it's not hard to install these things when I asked him why my drop turned out uneven and why my rear was still so high.

As you can see the shop had the chance to fix my issue but they had no clue what was wrong with the suspension claiming that the shocks i bought from tery were probably shot.

I took tery's advice and brought my car to a shop he recommended on sat and they took apart my suspension and re-installed everything and discovered all the errors the original shop made.

yelnats

UPDATE...brought my car back to the shop that screwed up the installation and got all my money back. All is well now thanks for everyones advice.

tery

Very happy to hear that you fix your problem.
even better you got your money back !

dlbehrns

WOW!

falls profet

Nice to see things turn out well.