Lowering springs -V- dealers

[Tony]

In my never ending determination to expose the suspension issue with the Mazda MX5nc i asked the owner of a new nc if we could measure the car once Mazda had fitted the lowering coils.

 

When the car arrived at wim it had 35 miles on the clock.... we measured the chassis and it was pretty much what we expected.

 

The next check was the bushings?.... To explain>

 

When the coils are installed it's normally done on a two poster lift, so the suspension is totally relaxed, no problem there, but!

 

When the satellite components are re-tightened this should be done with the wheels on the ground to ensure the bushings are captured (centrally) if not then under compression the bushing will tare.

 

The example today was a very poor one, the upper "A" arm bushings were totally loaded, as we released the lock nuts the bushing sprung back into their relaxed state.

 

Evidence of this can be seen from the Geometry report...... "Remember we adjusted nothing" only relaxed the bushing.

 

 

(posted twice to enlarge)

 

As you can see the camber has moved from

NSF> -35' to -1.00'

OSF> -41' to -1.06'

 

The body height also dropped..... by about 5mm.

 

The life expectancy of the bushings had they been left as was, would had been a matter of months.