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PB Coilovers: Review for AWD P1 chassis

1K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  sirloins 
#1 ·
Hello!
I have an update to this thread: https://forums.swedespeed.com/showthread.php?617691-Stock-vs-Budget-Coilover-for-AWD-V50 (but really, it's a separate review thread)

Having had the coilovers on my car for about 2 months now I feel qualified to comment on the differences. I will add that this review may be a bit short on pictures as my car is currently in quite a sorry state, but I'll put one or two in for flavor.

The big important factor that I think saved me from a terrible ride quality is customizing the spring rates. It wasn't hard, I emailed CS at PB and they were happy to talk with me about options. I ended up getting the softest set of springs, and to be honest I haven't been disappointed. It's cushy enough that I think if you were really interested in a new suspension feel you might be better served by getting them a stop or two stiffer. Anyway, here's the car, lowered to a 1" fender gap all around. (Yes, there's a hole in it.)



Install was easy, I have never done suspension work before and it was not hard to get them all put in. Getting them correctly set up is a bit of a trick, but that just took an afternoon and some patience. I didn't spring for pillowballs or camber plates, so there was very little that needed setting up overall. It's worth doing some reading about proper coilover setup, but again, it was not terribly hard. The catch with the P1 chassis as far as I can tell is that there's already a good amount of negative camber in the rear wheels, so lowering it can present tire wear problems. (I was at -3 degrees camber in the rear after lowering.) I picked up a set of adjustable rear camber arms (the Ford Focus/Mazda 3 parts work fine for that, even on the AWD models) and had it aligned for a bit less camber in the rears. I think it's at -1.5 degrees at the moment, but I digress.

Handling impressions: Super good! Admittedly, it's always nice to have fresh shocks/springs, but having the car lower has made it hug corners better at speeds I would not have believed before. I drive on terribly maintained roads a lot, (Troy NY, if anyone's local to there) and it's not tooth rattling, although it's certainly less cushy than before over broken pavement. My one complaint is that over some bumps the response feels very 'springy,' but I expect that's because I haven't finessed the adjustable damping down far enough. There's also still a good amount of body roll in the suspension, so a new beefier rear anti-sway bar would probably be my next choice in upgrade.

Total I paid ~$980 for the Coilovers, shipping, and a set of rear camber arms, and IIRC that's still quite competitive with OE shock/spring replacement. Would I do it again? Probably not, but only because I had other complications along the way. I ended up having to replace a lot of other stray suspension parts that the dear previous owner of my car completely neglected, so a lot of my time under the car was really cleaning up someone else's mess. If you've been under your car lately and your suspension bolts/nuts don't seem permanently stuck in place I'm sure you will have better luck. (IMO the results were still excellent. Smiles per gallon have gone way up.)

Unfortunately I'm probably also getting rid of the car soon, but that's for the classifieds section. :(

If you have any questions about the coilovers or my experience I will happily go over anything in the replies. Thanks for reading!
 
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#2 ·
Thanks for the review!

I was in a similar boat 6 months ago or so. I had a fairly rusted rear/bottom and although I liked the idea of coilovers by the time I had all the control arms/bolts etc it was going to be just a bit too expensive for me right now. I was still on the fence about the long-term durability of these coilovers vs getting bilstein/koni from fcpeuro.

It does seem like the best option for lowering, especially as the lowering springs are harder to come by these days too. I tried getting eibach ones but they just never shipped for over a month... Maybe it has to do with them being based in Corona, California?...

If you don't end up selling I would look forward to another update in a year or two seeing how well they hold up.
 
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