Suspension and Brake Recommendation

geokilla · Post by **geokilla** » 23 Jun 2011, 13:56

Ah all right. I'll make my order through the phone then and hopefully they can get ahold of them.

I read that it is recommended to change the struts when you change spring seats. Is this required? From my knowledge and my parent's memory, the suspension is still the original one from 10 years ago when we bought the car.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 23 Jun 2011, 14:22

The labor is all the same, just add the price of the struts to make that decision. How many miles are on the car?

By 100k to 150k, depending on your roads, the shocks and struts are normally pretty much toast. Other things you will likely need, even if you don't change the struts, are the bump stops and bellows. Also get new lower mounting nuts and bolts since they get angle torqued.

...Lee

geokilla · Post by **geokilla** » 23 Jun 2011, 14:38

Car has 263k km as indicated in my sig, so just over 163k miles. I can't find anything in the service history and receipts either relating to the struts and springs, so it pretty much verifies that we're still on the original suspension. Is there a way to check, besides doing the "pushing the car down at the corner" check?

I'm talking with FCP online slowly right now, and they said the rotors are sold individually. Only the slotted and drilled rotors are sold in sets, if he remembers correctly.

Post by **Juan62** » 23 Jun 2011, 14:55

Geo; it maybe time now to start replacing suspension parts. I've read many articles and the just of it is around 100K. Though, my car only has 62K miles and a 1998, even I am experiencing suspension problems. You're not alone. After I replace Timing belt, serp belt, water pump, and seals, etc, back to suspension parts. OEM for nuts, dust (bellow) covers, bump stops, retaining (plastic-rear only) pins, strut mount bearings...XC90 upper spring seat or IPD's HD spring seat (rubber). Tie-rods, transmission mounts, engine mounts (upper/lower) or IPD's upper engine mounts. I'm saving until i get all suspension parts to include sub-frame bushings and struts/shocks, then will do the job. Finally, alignment.

Post by **Juan62** » 23 Jun 2011, 14:58

Geo, read the "Front Suspension-putting together parts list". This will assist you much more.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 23 Jun 2011, 15:05

If it were me, and you have enough loonies, I would change them (the struts). In the process of removing the spring seat the strut is completely free and it makes no difference in time, other than opening the box, whether a new part or an old part goes back in.

This is not a horrible job but it isn't like changing the oil either. It is a solid 4 wrencher so it is the kind of thing I would like to just check off of the list and be done with it. I'm a fairly decent shade-tree mechanic and changing a bad axle and the struts and spring seats, along with the tie rod ends, took me a very long day - about 10 hours.

I was using a pneumatic impact wrench to compress the springs, a little on one side and a little on the other, back and forth, which greatly speeds things up. Once you get the cross shaped nut off (which can be its own special nightmare) things go very quickly.

The car will handle quite strangely if you don't change the rear shocks at the same time and I stay brand specific front to rear on shocks and struts. Whichever brand you choose do all four corners with that brand.

...Lee

geokilla · Post by **geokilla** » 23 Jun 2011, 15:17

I stumbled onto this suspension kit and it more or less has everything that we need. It uses the OEM S70 spring seats though instead of the XC90 ones. There's also sway bar links in there, which I'm not so sure if we need or not. But it seems that the more research I do, the more things I find that needs to be replaced...

Should the springs and shocks be changed as well? If I have enough money that is.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 23 Jun 2011, 15:34

The standard spring seats will work just fine, just not as long. At the end of the day it depends on how much longer you plan to drive the car.

In my case I'm going for the million mile club on all of them - well maybe 3 out of the 4 - so even the parts that I am putting on a car with 256,154 miles on it I am using premium parts. My son's 850 that has been solid reliable getting him through college - other than the C/V joint that blew up on his way home - and I only paid around $350.00 for it and it has a bunch of warts - it may soon come up in the parts section of the classifieds.

If this is a car that you will drive for another couple of years and then get something different I wouldn't worry about it on the spring seats between the standard seats or the XC90 seats but don't sink so low as to use Scan Tech parts.

...Lee

quietlymknnoise · Post by **quietlymknnoise** » 23 Jun 2011, 18:39

Try their new beta site FCPEuro.com. They have a sale going on until 6/30 at 10,12 &15 % depending on your total price.

geokilla · Post by **geokilla** » 23 Jun 2011, 21:52

Wait so I should to change the springs, shocks, when the struts are changed? They should all be the original ones btw so I'm thinking they're pretty much shot. Is there a way to check besides the pushing at the corner of car technique?

Um how do I check which control arm and tie rod the car has? I found this image, but where am I supposed to look once I jack the car up? Or do every single S70 come with the 2 bolt control arm and not the 4 bolt one? I can't find any OEM 4 bolt control arms on IPD and FCP, only aftermarket ones.

To check if they need replacing, I found the two posts: post #1 and post #2. I don't recall the tires moving when we were switching from winter tires to summer tires. At most, they spun just a wee bit back and forth as we were tightening the nuts and stuff.

Also found this thread which is hella useful.

It seems that the FCP control arms are pretty good as well, assuming our S70 uses the two bolt mounting.

Sorry for being such a newb.

Suspension and Brake Recommendation

Re: Suspension and Brake Recommendation