Many Questions: GC Coil-overs / Strut wear
 

I'm thinking about a suspension upgrade, and from what I've been reading, I think I want to go with the GC Coil-overs. I've also been reading that when you lower your car, your struts are going to wear faster than normal.

Questions:

Under normal conditions (daily driver, stock height), how long does a set of struts last?

How much faster will the stock struts wear once the coil-overs are installed?

Will all struts wear faster with the coil-overs, or will some outlast others?

Would it be a problem (would you be retarded) if you planned on installing the coil-overs first and then just waiting for the struts to wear before upgrading them? I don't want to throw the whole chunk of change on the counter at one time, so I'm thinking about doing the coil-overs now and replacing the struts in a year or so.

I'm most interested in performance results, so please tell me know if the GC coil-overs are a bad choice.

Hypothetically, if you had a choice to put coil-overs on or upgrade your struts, but you absolutely couldn't do both... what would you do to get the best handling out of your car.

BTW, car is a P5

with the stock springs? on a decent set of OEM struts should last 75K-100K miles. now, last and performance are too difference things. :) their performance will degrade over time.

it all really depends on how low you drop it, and what the spring rates are. say you got rates close to stock (does anyone know what they are on a P5?), and lowered it only 0.5", you'd probably still get some life out of the stockers. obviously vice-versa if you got stiff-ass rates and lowered it 2" or more.

again, it depends on how much you lower the car, and what brand of struts. koni and bilstein are, IMO, the best struts out there for the money. and if you can get shorter-stroke struts (like if the progress group ever gets their ass in gear and makes us some!), you can lower the car 1.5"-2" safely and acheive good performance. also depends on where you live, as the tokico illuminas tend to blow seals in colder weather.

you can do whatever you want, it's your car. :D my recommendation would be to get not-so-stiff rates (not the best choice for a daily-driver anyway) if you want to use the stock struts until they die. then get nice struts.

GC's are excellent. i've had 3 sets (ITR w/ koni yellows, civic si w/ bilsteins, impreza 2.5RS w/ kyb agx), and can attest to their quality and ease of adjustibility.

but, having them on daily-drivers before, i can also attest to them being a little hardcore for daily use (even with softer rates, the nature of the linear springs isn't the nicest for bumps). i just bought a P5, and my suspension plans are for a set of H&R springs, and then either the mazdaspeed struts or i'll wait for a decent set of struts to come out (bilstein, koni, progress).

whew. :o hope this helps. :D

peter

Thanks Pete!
 

Hey, I really appreciate your insight. I was counting on experienced people's opinions. Being in advertising, I know that in any media, word of mouth is still the #1 sales driver.

I was looking around, and I also thought about maybe going with the Eibach pro series instead. I don't think I'll need to ever drop them that much, and they are a little on the cheaper side (perhaps I should say "less expensive").

yeah, the eibachs seem like a good kit (eibach makes great springs anyway). i'm thinking of going with the H&R's, more of an even drop (1.3" f/r), and they're cheaper, too. :D

actually, tonight i got to finally give the stock suspension on my brandy-new MY02.5 P5 a workout, and it really is very nice. could use a slightly bigger rear swaybar, though. :D

peter