Negative side affects that come with lowering a car....

quicksliver · Post by **quicksliver** » June 26th, 2005, 8:38 pm

Is it not true that when you lower any car it will put more strain on pretty much all front end components, therefore shortening their life span and causing premature failure? Inputs needed...

Ex. CV Axles, Wheel Bearings, Ball Joints, Tie-Rods, etc.

neutral · Post by **neutral** » June 26th, 2005, 9:24 pm

Lowering too much can cause unacceptable additional stress on some components like CV's because you're changing their angle of interface. Don't know about those other components though and the stress on CV's is minimized by not lowering too much - no more than 1"-1.5" which is a commonly found recommended max.

PATDIESEL · Post by **PATDIESEL** » June 27th, 2005, 12:29 am

It will wear on the other parts also, but only if the camber is out of whack quite a bit. You should be fine since my camber is off only slightly with a 2" drop using GCs and MS struts. You probably need new bearings anyway.

jschrauwen · Post by **jschrauwen** » June 30th, 2005, 4:38 pm

Alignment will almost always be a must to some degree (no pun intended) after lowering the car. Depending on how capable your mechanic is at maxing out the available camber adjustment left over front factory parts. More than likely, camber adjusting bolts will be required for the new alignment to correct the excessive negative camber created by lowering. Failure to get an alignment after lowering could spell spent tires in a matter of months.

neutral · Post by **neutral** » June 30th, 2005, 5:51 pm

jschrauwen wrote:Alignment will almost always be a must to some degree (no pun intended)...

LOL

FiReSTaRT · Post by **FiReSTaRT** » September 13th, 2005, 6:02 pm

And it also depends on how you decide to go about the lowering process. As several people here already mentioned, done properly, and aligned afterwards, you should not have any significant wear/tear damage.

jschrauwen · Post by **jschrauwen** » September 13th, 2005, 8:41 pm

FiReSTaRT wrote:And it also depends on how you decide to go about the lowering process. As several people here already mentioned, done properly, and aligned afterwards, you should not have any significant wear/tear damage.

Mr. Firestart, is it your intention to go through old threads make a comment or two so as to pad your post count? Can we anticipate a post around the #30 mark in the For Sale Forum as well? I that's your intent why not save yourself and others time and ask directly to one of the Administrators via a PM as to your need/request. Honest and up front works wonders. Please forgive if I've missinterpreted.

FiReSTaRT · Post by **FiReSTaRT** » September 14th, 2005, 6:31 pm

Actually I have absolutely nothing to sell so I have no reason to post on that forum. I was going through the old threads b/c I decided to take a break from renovating my house and veg out in front of my computer for a few hours instead. I decided this time would be well-spent in familiarizing myself with my recently acquired car. I did the same on another forum when I got my first VW in 2000. At times I'd come across the occasional old topic where I could ask a question relevant to my own dub or offer a comment. I tried to do the same for my mx. If I wanted to boost my post count for any reason, I could just open a few topics, ask a few stupid questions about oil changes, shift knobs or brake pads and i'd get up to 30 posts within a couple of hours. If you had any concerns about the reasons why I was looking through the old threads, it would have been more apropriate to PM me first and THEN start bashing me if you still thought I was just trying to inflate my post-count.

ccreech · Post by **ccreech** » November 1st, 2005, 10:51 am

You have proven yourself in the test of fire. Well done young man!
I post redundant, useless, unhelpfull and redundant crap here all the time. I thought that is what Mx-3.com was all about. That and redundantly griping about people redundantly not doing redundant searches. Here I go looking through old posts too...Quick...Someone question my motives. I'm Researching suspension set-ups and reading everything that even looks relevent.

Good looking out though JSchrauwen. If he had been doing that I would have posted this:

nicacus · Post by **nicacus** » November 2nd, 2005, 1:18 pm

so I just lowered my car.. and the alignment shop tells me it is going to cost me about 800 dollars to put a camber kit on?? I have never been to this place before.. the usual place I go told me I was farked and they couldnt do the alignment because I lowered my car.. and so they told me to go to this special place.... and this special place sucks... not only was an alignment 80 bucks but they car still pulls to the left and they wont fix it because "my camber is so off, that they cant guarantee it will be straight" last time I checked the camber isnt going to make your car pull unless one is negative and the other is positive.. right?? so you 'd think they could correct that even if it is a little lower..
so basically I got screwed out of 80 bucks...
am I going to need the camber plates?? or would the camber bolts work??
I have the figures for all the alignment if anyone cares to know.. them..

2fazed · Post by **2fazed** » November 5th, 2005, 5:47 pm

nicacus wrote:so I just lowered my car.. and the alignment shop tells me it is going to cost me about 800 dollars to put a camber kit on?? I have never been to this place before.. the usual place I go told me I was farked and they couldnt do the alignment because I lowered my car.. and so they told me to go to this special place.... and this special place sucks... not only was an alignment 80 bucks but they car still pulls to the left and they wont fix it because "my camber is so off, that they cant guarantee it will be straight" last time I checked the camber isnt going to make your car pull unless one is negative and the other is positive.. right?? so you 'd think they could correct that even if it is a little lower..
so basically I got screwed out of 80 bucks...
am I going to need the camber plates?? or would the camber bolts work??
I have the figures for all the alignment if anyone cares to know.. them..

You know that $800 for camber install is a rip-off right? All they are is replacement strut bolts. You replace the top bolt on the struts. You can do that. And a kit on Ebay goes for about $22 shipped.

A camber bolt won't fix a pulling car. You got another problem. When my RS pulled, it was that arm part that goes on the bottom of the spindle. Costed about $50, and replacing was easy. I would find a shop that gives cheap inspections, take it there and find out if you need to replace any of your parts first.

nicacus · Post by **nicacus** » November 6th, 2005, 9:54 am

thats what I fugured... I told the guy I had seen them for alot cheaper... and he said that he doubted the would be much cheaper than 7 or 8 hundred... he was a dueche...

anyways I will look into the camber kits.. I have a bad water pump to worry about for now..

Nd4SpdSe · Post by **Nd4SpdSe** » November 6th, 2005, 3:47 pm

NO freaking way! $800??!?!

Here's some pics of my car before and after lowering:
http://www.mx-3.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=46214

All i had to do was get some camber bolts, like $6/each and they have more than enough adjustment to handle my drop

nicacus · Post by **nicacus** » November 6th, 2005, 4:40 pm

sweet.. I will have to get some pics of my car after I dropped it.. it looks freakin sick... I love it... to bad it is being a pain in the friggin arse right now..

Andrew_Pakula · Post by **Andrew_Pakula** » November 7th, 2005, 6:10 pm

$800 for camber bolts???

Are they made of Gold or Platinum or something? lol