After how many miles would you consider a 1997 car's suspension to be worn to the point of it being a reasonable thing to renew?

I am looking for good turn-in, steering feedback and safe emergency braking on the motorway. I do rarely, rarely really use the hyperspace features on the car.

I'm currently at 31K on the originals.

Am I better off getting the anti-lift kit or the anti-roll bushes folks keep talking about?

Can the dealer measure how worn things are?
Can I replace them singly, in pairs or all four?

What's my options for replacement and prices for:-
1997 UK
1998 UK
1999 UK
1999 RB5?
2000 P1 (here's hoping!)
Leda <mumble>

cheers,
Rob.

 

It'll be quite a while before things are really worn. Might want to get the shockabsorbers tested at around 40,000 miles, depending on the roads you normally use. With a car from 1997 I can't imagine that the rubbers in the endlinks and the bushings are worn.

If you however want to increase handling you can fit thikker sways, stronger endlinks etc. You can also try to increase tyre pressure a little and change the geometry to the prodrive settings. You'll notice the improvement.

Regards,

Nico van Steen
Netherlands

 

Thanks Nico.

So can a subaru dealer accurately check shock absorbers then?

I currently have the Prodrive geometry. I'm booked to have the geometry put back to standard tomorrow as the car tramlines a little and will be doing 100 miles a day on a straight motorway for the next 3 months.

I'm sure the car used to be arrow true on the motorway, although I have since put 16 inch wheels and 10,000 miles on the car since I last worried about anything other than good turn-in and cornering.

Any suggestions on damper replacement is it is needed?

Rob.

 

I had to get a front strut changed a few weeks back, but rather than change just the one, I fitted the front suspension from a MY99 car (springs and struts) at both sides.

Has made a noticeable improvement to the handling, despite having only covered 17k miles.

The previous set-up was fine, but the new set-up just seems to have tightened up everything again, and made the handling a bit sharper.

If I wasn't forced into replacing the damper, then I'd have left them as they were.

 

Rob,

If the shocks seem OK, I would spend some money on the ALK and rear sway bar links - see

 

Nice site, i did notice that scoobymania do not seen to supply any suspension kits, is there a reason for that ?

 

Yes we do, but the site is currently under heavy construction.

We sell AVO suspension kits and we are currently developing a 'top drawer kit with probably the best quality manufacturer on the planet........ details to follow next year when we have seen, used tested the end product.

The website will get bigger and better over the next few months as our info is uploaded to it.

 

Since I currently do 2 hours a day driving on a straight motorway, I went back to Micheldever Tyres to have the car returned to standard geometry to remove the tramlining effect of the negative camber.

While there, I learnt they now have the equipment to test suspension dampers. Not only that, but it's a free test. It looks like a couple of pneumatic pads in front of a rolling road.

Here's the resulting plot

 

Hi Rob,

Your plot says that your car has an all-up weight of 1705kg. I presume you were carrying something very heavy

Very interesting that they have such a sophisticated test rig - do Micheldever also sell dampers?

Cheers,

Alex