Question about mechanics treatment of spring pads

[202rules]

My understanding is that spring pads are used to do final tweaking to make sure the car sits uniformly on all sides, is that correct?

What should I expect (or ask) the mechanic to do when I take my car in to have my new shocks and lowering springs installed ? Will they take care of installing the right set of pads required for the car even if that means having to try more than one pad in one place? Or will they simply take the springs off, put the new springs in and call it a day even if it's higher in one side or end than the other?

[iwhocorrupts]

with mine they just took the old ones off, put the new ones on and called it a day.. but this was free for me because i know a couple people at the dealership. It should sit evenly on all sides, mine did.

[yvrbenz]

The spring pads are used to adjust the static ride height of the car, not to adjust whether the car is level at all corners or not. The spring pad height is chosen through a calculated method based on what options the car is equipped with:

- Each option is assigned a point value.
- All of the points (from all of the options) are added up and a total is ascertained.
- Each spring pad has a point value range attached to it.
- Whichever range the total for the car in question falls into is the spring pad that is installed in the car.

The techs are not going to spend a lot of time measuring the ride height of the car to make sure it's the same at each corner (and for $85.00/hr do you really want them to?) In any case, if you have new springs swapped in they will need time to settle.

As far as how even the car will sit, making springs is as much of an art as it is a science. They'll do their best at the factory to match the springs, but there really is no way to absolutely guarantee the results.

[202rules]

Thanks to both of you for the replies, and thanks for the detailed explanation yvrbenz.

I'm gonna cross my fingers and hope for the best to come out. The springs I have are Eibach Pro Kit. I'll talk to the mechanic but won't have high expectations as far as the pads.

[yvrbenz]

No problem.

Further to my earlier post, it's entirely likely that your car may wind up a little bit out of level; however if the difference is significant (ie. greater than 1/2" or so) you may have a legitimate reason to go back to whomever supplied the springs for warranty replacement.