what is it then? its doing me my head in now:brickwall
iv just changed to whiteline droplinks and nothing has changed when i thought it might be them!

It isnt ur car its the BC`s Bren aint bothered he knew about my problem after a few days,
I think I was just given crap gear after all the hassles.

My car has Whitelines fitted and the BC's still knock...

I'm taking the rear shock off this week and having it compound / recoil tested so i'll let you know if its the shock or the top mount.

I had quite an irritating knocking sound from offside rear after fitting BC's a few months ago. After tightening Whiteline ARB & also adjusting to medium setting, it has reduced a lot & now only comes on bumpy roads occasionaly. I have not re-greased my Whiteline ARB bushes in over a year so I do think that once that is done too, the noise should almost stop. So in my case I dont think it is the coilovers but the ARB.

Thanks for the heads up ricky.

Any idea how to 'soften' the ride, My RB5 came with the BC's already fitted and no paperwork was provided.

Are you BC's adjustable I presume. If so you can turn the twiddly bit on the top anti-clockwise IIRC to adjust.

Erm, No i don't think they are

They don't have the adj on the top of them.

They might be inverted & adjusters could be on the underside?

They are inverted, but i thought the adjusters if any should of been on the top.

On the bottom. Unless you'v got remote reservoirs (which I doubt as most BC's are probably normal or inverted) which are usually located somewhere else e.g in the boot.

yep on the bottom, 25 notches from hard to soft on the back

and 15 notches from hard to soft on the fronts..

I've wound mine right to soft and the ride is Much Mich better.

Cheers Ricky ..

I would try increasing the stifness in small increaments to find the right balance, as going fully soft may not offer the best handling.

I had knocking from my coliovers at low speed if I had a jerky start or at higher speed if there was a dip in the road like a sunken drain cover. Took it for a service and the Subaru garage couldn't sort it.
Fixed it by looking at some of the suggestions on this thread. Turns out there was not enough preload, when I jacked up the car it was pretty obvious as the springs could be spun around by hand, just added an extra turn on the adjuster ring after they engaged the springs and now totally fixed.
So thanks everybody.
My coilovers are the exotically named Wangan Monoceros but the design looks very similar to AST, BC et al.

Happy New Year!

I am glad I am not on my own - think the BC's are ace but have had mine 2 weeks and are knocking. only on the front near side though - rest are ace. going to check the pre load again - second time now to see if I can get ride of the creaking and knocking I get at low speeds and pulling from a snad still. Does feel lick pressure is comming off the spring and gowning back on when I brake - any one else feel this when they pull away?

Ok, i had mine compound tested, the NSR produces the same resistance as OSR so its not a spring issue, But since turning DOWN the overall pressure its seems to have 'quietened' down the knock. Granted the ride is very 'fish tail' in the wet, but i'm looking at upping the pressure bit by bit (thanks Ricky) until i get a decent handling car but without the knock.

sorry to sound thick but what is meant by checking the preload of the spring ? i have a knock on o/s front but not over bumps,it is wen i put gas on when i pull off (slow or fast) any ideas welcome,cheers, ps i have the bc coilovers (not inverted,my 02 )

If anyone has any problems that they want to dicuss and work through then feel free to give us a ring on 01274 683633. Ask for Kev :) Just not today as we are struggling with the snow and hes not here yet.

Same problem here, I've had my BC (BR series) coilovers on my 53 plate Sti on the car for 7 months (2k miles) and the rear passenger side has rattled/clunked/knocked since day one. All the nuts/bolts/locking rings are tight. I was told from Apex that the uncompressed spring length is printed on the spring, mine has 220, so with 5mm of preload the spring should measure 115mm. Mine measure 106mm (BOTH sides) so why is only one side making a noise ?!?
I'm not keen on adjusting anything any further or removing the strut as I'm skint after spending £1000 on coilovers+strutbrace+brakepads, and geo setups cost money! (and time!)

bj

Anyone here run any other coilovers ?

They will all transmit more road noise to the cabin when you are running spherical bearings than the normal rubber bushed top mounts. Its why car mfrs spend millions on NVH research and development.

My EXE-tc are super plush and stunning coilovers but there is always a small knock, creak or whatever noise - spherical bearings do that.

My setup transmits a fair bit of road noise/vibration to the cabin (spherical bearing topmounts, fairly hard 8K Front and 5K rear springs and rose jointed droplinks which seem to add to it). It is grating when the surface is rough (that bit of the M1 (around junction 22 I think) is particularly annoying.

However, what signaled something amiss to me was the crashy 'clonk'. Apart from being annoying it makes you lose a bit of confidence in the car and drive like a granny for fear of something dropping off which just utterly defeats the purpose of owning a subaru.

Anyhow, checking the preload (as recommended by bren@apex in a previous post I think) really helped me and transformed by feelings about the setup. I know this will not fix everyone's issues but I think it is worth pursuing a fix/taking it to a suspension specialist as your enjoyment of the car is vastly improved if you are not imagining imminent suspension collapse or a wheel coming off!

My Subaru garages suggestion of replacing each coilover in turn with standard suspension to isolate the problem was probably not the most sensible/realistic therefore I reckon suspension specialists for your particular coilover is a must and will probably save you a fair bit of money in the long run as they will isolate the problem in minutes rather than hours/days.

Cheers

Oh and BTW my coilovers are Wangan Monoceros which are OEM Aragosta Japan/Topline whose parts mainly come from AST!

Fleetwood

"However, what signaled something amiss to me was the crashy 'clonk'. Apart from being annoying it makes you lose a bit of confidence in the car and drive like a granny for fear of something dropping off which just utterly defeats the purpose of owning a subaru."...

..."as your enjoyment of the car is vastly improved if you are not imagining imminent suspension collapse or a wheel coming off!"

Hit the nail on the head mate ! - exactly how I feel !

Ok I think I will persue checking the preload properly myself,
or can anyone suggest a good suspension speciallist near me in Leven, Fife, Scotland ??

Cheers

now both rear coilovers are making noise:brickwall
thought it was just me thinking i could hear something, but a friend could hear them both knocking too!

Went back to garage and they adjusted the preload to spot on 5mm, top job. Is much better though the left front still creaks and knocks - the other 3 sides are fine. going back next week - could it be faulty coilover ? only 3 weeks old?

I officially have knocking/clonking/twanging BCs now too and am getting quite peed off with the whole thing. Have tried adjusting ride height, preload (I think) and dampening but to no avail. It really is disconcerting.... so much so.... I just don't want to drive the car. Rich (fiestaboy) will be looking at it for me on Wednesday so hopefully he'll recognise the symptoms and offer a cure.... I'm just glad that its not just me and that some solutions seem to be available.....

I've just purchased a Hawkeye wit BC Coilovers & Whiteline lift kit on, they where fitted in November and has only done 1000 miles since fitting. Ive had the knocking noise on n/s/r and sometimes o/s/r shock... Also i herd a twang noise on way home

Any ideas peeps.

Used to have Ohlins on my classic... very hard suspension compared to my newer BC's which are a bit more forgiving.

No knocking from the BC's, but I did suffer from knocking from the Ohlins and I went to over 3 garages to try and get it sorted as it got so loud and clunky - it was unbearable!!

Car was still under warranty from the garage I bought it from at the time and after they conceded it wasn't the jack banging around in the boot, they changed the drop links and bushings, which made no difference. Didn't think that was the issue, but got uprated parts in the process!

Finally after going to several other garages and a lot of head scratching I had the luck of coming across a Subaru mech who apparently worked on the WRC cars at some stage in his career; he simply tightened a nut on the top mount... problem solved after months of agonising embarrassing clunking.

Maybe not be your problem, but hope you manage to get it sorted!

For those with clunking rear BC's.

1) What type of top mount are you running? Adjustable spherical bearing or fixed rubber?

2) Have you changed any other components? ARB, droplinks, etc?

Mine have the rubber top mounts and are clunking. It's doing my head in! I've checked the spring pre-load, top nut tightness, ARB & droplink bushes and everything looks okay.

Overall the ride & adjustability is great but the 'clunk' is very disappointing given the time, money & effort it took to get these fitted.

Mark

Mine have fully adjustable top mount... Im going to check tightness tomorrow at work and put the car on the softest setting all round.

John

When you say knocking, what sort of thing do you mean? I can hear a lot of road noise with my BC's, and the wheels make more noise when hitting bumps in the road, but is this a rattling type noise or something?