How can i cheaply lower my cars ride height?

Question

The cheapest way i can think of is cutting the springs, but does that blow my shocks?

any alternative methods? i seen springs on ebay for pretty cheap, but will they blow my shocks?

also, i heard lowering the car gives u negative wheel allignment. can it be fixed by just a simple allignment tweak at firestone or something? or i need better stuff.

Answer 1

do not cut the springs you mess the ride up. what you are basicaly doing is cutting the part of the spring that prevents over load. you should get the aftermarket springs cause they just move the overload part and cut the excess off. as for the alignment you do need to have it checked and will probably need some special bolts that fix it. the bolts are like 20 bucks. good luck

Answer 2

the cheapest way is cutting the springs but like you said it will destroy your shocks after a little while...to safely do it you should get some good lowering springs (www.sportcompactonly.com) and generally the car will respond better to those if your shocks are not too old. After a while though you will need to get aftermarket shocks so I would get them both at the same time. if you're willing to spend around $700 you could get some adjustable coilovers and then you can adjust your ride height depending on the road conditions. Overall you want to realise that your suspension is what connects your car to the ground and if you lose them it becomes an unsafe situation pretty quickly...so do try to be safe and good luck!

Answer 3

Ok, cheap and suspension shouldn't go together. Your suspension is a critical part of your safety. Last thing you need is your suspension completely breaking apart while you drive, that could cause a serious accident.

Don't cut the springs, it is the cheapest way, but its the most useless way too. You'll blow shocks in no time, your ride will be terrible, and your overall suspension will be weaker, something you don't really want.

Ebay springs? yeah. don't get those. I've seen somebody who installed them, blew the shocks in 2.5 months and also one of the springs wouldn't even settle right, so the back right of the car seemed higher than the rest of the wheels. You get what you pay for, buy cheap kits and you a get cheap (and often unsafe) suspension set-up.

Lowering the car does give you negative wheel alignment, you can get a camber kit or you can try getting your wheels aligned. However, for drops that are usually over 1" usually the only way that actually works perfectly is a kit. Alignment doesn't work so well on a significant drop.

What i would do if i was you, is just save your money. Again suspension is a critical part of your car, buy some quality springs, something like Tein, Eibach, H&R, etc. Then get some quality shocks (stock shocks won't last long with aftermarket suspension springs) Some good shocks are, Tokico, Koni, KYB, etc. Or you can go for coilover suspension, which provides usually a smoother ride and ride height adjustability, but it is more expensive.

When it comes to suspension, if your spending less than $600 on your complete set-up, your getting a cheap kit and its not worth it. A good suspension will cost you over $600 easy. If you want to buy a cheap kit, you can do that. Just know you'll be replacing shocks often, and your putting your safety in danger. i've heard of horror stories where cheap suspension set ups have just gave way, causing the wheel to shove up into the fender and become "locked" in there, making the driver lose control.

Answer 4

get a really fat guy to jump on it.

Answer 5

get a torch and heat up the coils and they will begin to collapse...old trick we used to do in the 50s works good and it fits your "cheap" criteria

Answer 6

get tires that have shorter side walls