Quote:
Originally Posted by AlterZgo
The OEM shocks will not outlast your ownership unless you plan on selling your car in like 5K miles or so. The truth is all shocks wear out over time and installing any lowering springs - including MP HAS kits will hasten the degradation, and even more if people ignore the BMW recommendations and drop the car as low as possible.
While I didn't try the MP HAS kit, I did have the very similar KW HAS kit on my brand new M3 and the damping of my stock shocks were noticeably bad in less than 10K miles. If you don't think the stock set up is very buttoned down, when the shocks degrade, you will notice the even floatier ride quality and the car will crash harder over railroad tracks and potholes.
I have lowered every single car I've owned and I've done it with everything from cut springs, to aftermkt springs to sleeve kits, to aftermarket shock and lowering spring kits, to several full on coilover kits. The reality is, every time I replaced only springs, the stock shocks had noticeably less damping in about 10K miles... maybe 20K miles tops. Not everyone will notice this but it was very noticeable to me and my M3 was probably the worse in how fast the stock shocks wore out once I added the KW HAS kit.
So if you are at all considering the MP HAS kit, just spend a little more and get some full coilovers that have matched shocks w/ adjustable height springs. Bilstein PSS10s start at about $2K and KW V3s are about $2.4K. It really is worth the extra cost IMO and will save you money in the long run.
Every time I bought only springs. I've ended up going back and replacing my suspension with either upgraded shocks too or upgrading to a full coilover suspension and paying 2x for install/removal costs. Despite knowing this, I made the same mistake yet again with my M3 and went with the KW HAS kit thinking M3s are high perofrmance cars that should have really great stock German engineered dampers... they were great for about 5K miles then started noticeably getting worse... and I didn't even slam the car - had about 2 finger gap in front and near stock height in rear on my KW HAS kit.
I'm sure many will disagree, but just putting this out there for your consideration. There's nothing worse than driving a $70K - $80K car where you have to cringe when you approach railroad tracks or hit a big bump on the fwy onramp b/c you know the suspension's about to go to hell in a handbasket.
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I think you just talked me out of the MP HAS or anything similar. Thanks for saving me some $$!!
