I brought my sti in to get the rear struts replaced cause they were knocking but i wasn't sure what one was bad and i checked to see if they had them in stock cause its not convineint for me to bring it to the dealership and they said they had rear ones in stock... anyways... It turned one rear one was bad and one front one was bad, and the rear one they had in stock was bad. after finding out that i had a bad front one too I am seriously considering if i should see if i could get jdm pink spring installed when they fix my struts so hopefully the drop will fix the strut problems. what do you guys think?
errr... dropping the suspension will fix nothing. It will probably make it more prone to deteriorating faster though. If theyre changing all 4 struts asking them to put new springs on for free isnt asking much though, its jsut as easy for them as putting your old springs back on.
Agreed. If you are shelling out the $$$ yourself, maybe you might want to look into an aftermarket strut solution.
If my sti struts ever go again now that I'm out of warranty I'm thinking about picking up a set of those bc's from Josh at ImportImage.
the reason why they deteriorate faster from what i have researched is that it is the same strut as in the jdm version, but the jdm version rides lower. they put taller springs in the usdm ones which causes the struts to have an operating range that is extended further than they were designed to operate at.
I would think the inverted design, lack of oiling, and, well, gravity would have more to do with the struts clunking and ultimately failing.
yeah, that doesn't help either. I am just try to find a solution without buying completely new suspension.
All the reading I've done is the same as Zapman...The USDM springs are 10mm higher, IIRC it was to meet some Federal standard regarding ride height. A decent set of lowering springs, whether it's Prodrives or JDM pinks has been shown to help the problem in most cases. The trick is to not go too low, just 10-15mm or so.
I believe USDM + JDM pinks = Jap Spec C. Obviously lots of people are running pinks out there and I haven't seen a thread saying the pinks caused premature failure of any type. Personally if I was in your position I'd go with RCE spirngs and trim the bump stops. Search IWSTI for both.
I have the Prodrives on my car and had both rears go bad, had them replaced and they have been fine ever since. I thought there was some kind of revision a year ago??
Have not heard that before... interesting, though I will remain skeptical... There have been a handful of revised part numbers. They all still do it. There is no real solution, it is just a matter of time. If you jack the car up and lube the shaft it will quit for a couple weeks. If you take apart the strut and lube inside it will stay quiet for quite awhile. Is this warranty work or are you paying for it? If they are replacing one front and one rear under warranty, I would really push for all four, since the others are probably going to go pretty soon anyway. If you do anything other than stock springs I imagine you can kiss any future strut warranty goodbye if they start clunking again. Don't know what year your car is, but if you are paying for it yourself there are good cheap options out there for the '04, and with 05+ you can get dirt cheap nearly-new takeoffs all day long in the nasioc classifieds.
its an 06 they started clunking this past winter with about 10k miles on them, i have almost 20k now but finally had time to bring it in to get fixed. plus now that brian work at a dealership i can trust a dealership again to bring it in. I am thinking that i am going to ride out the replacements and if they go bad i'll try the jdm pinks then. btw brian, they tried to screw me over when i went to pay for my mirror today but one guy straightened it out for me.
Hmmm...where do I start? I'll just end...I am on my 3rd set of rears and I currently have one bad one (no more warranty). I ran STi pinks for some time on the previous set on the entire time on the current set. Springs have no effect. end.
lol, adjustable would be nice so i can jack the **** out of it in the winter, sti with a 6" lift yummy... I think i am just gonna see how long this set last and get all the free ones i can and then once my warranty is gone go aftermarket. thanks for the input guys.
