Lowering Springs and Loading of Car
06-27-2018, 09:29 AM
#1
AudiWorld Junior Member
Thread Starter
Lowering Springs and Loading of Car
I am wanting to get lowering springs on my car to fix the wheel gap, but am concerned what affect that has when loading the car with additional weight? I am a engineering contractor that travels the country every year to work elsewhere. When doing so, I have to load my car with luggage and other necessities, therefore putting some decent additional weight in the rear of the car. Is this going to be an issue if changing out my springs?
Thanks for any input you can give me on this before I decide to move forward with changing out the springs...
Thanks for any input you can give me on this before I decide to move forward with changing out the springs...
Last edited by briedfox; 06-27-2018 at 09:33 AM.
06-27-2018, 10:20 AM
#2
AudiWorld Senior Member
If you are only doing lowering springs, but you are not changing the dampers to match those springs (or alternatively replacing both springs and dampers with a complete one-piece suspension system aka coilovers), then it should be an expectation that your OEM dampers will wear out faster than they would on the factory springs due to spending 100% of their time compressed an inch or so further than they were designed for at the factory whether you load the car up or not.
What this translates to in practice is that while an OEM damper might last 100,000 miles on the factory setup, lowering springs might reduce that exact same damper's life expectency to 60,000 miles. Or 70,000 miles. Or 30,000 miles. It really depends on the car (which the B9 S4 is a completely new platform and so nobody knows how the dampers inside it will hold up over a long haul nobody except probably Audi themselves has put that kind of mileage on one yet) how you drive, where you drive, how much you load the car, and a million other factors. But it should be expected that a car lowered on springs only will have a lower damper life expectancy than one that isn't. Such is common knowledge in the car modding community and a game everyone has to decide if they want to play. It is also not specific to Audi.
When you buy a coilover system, the spring rate and damper are engineered to match eachother exactly and so they can last much longer and provide a much more dialed-in ride that can take more abuse. This is a major selling point of such systems and why they are popular in racing (which is really their intended purpose especially when you get into 16-way adjustable damping with independently adjustable high speed/low speed compression, preload, and rebound), but coilovers are a lot more expensive than springs alone. For some cars it is also possible to buy a matched aftermarket spring + aftermarket damper set which provides a similar end result, sometimes for cheaper than a true coilover, but I'm not sure if that option exists yet for the B9.
Taking your question from another angle, consider the following:
1- Putting four people + a trunk full of gear in the car could add 1000 lbs to the curb weight.
2- Audi, in the owner's manual (and in some countries but not the US due to federal rules, on the door jamb sticker as well) provides two different tire pressures for each factory wheel & tire option, one for "normal load" and one for "max load." For your cross country driving your probably want to run at max load but for everyday loading you'll probably want to air down to normal load, which is a solid 8-10psi lower than the max load pressure. Go have a looksie in your manual and you'll see what I'm talking about. The lesson here is that tires can be loaded too, and Audi has some guidance for how to account for that for the best possible handling/safety/tread life/etc.
3- When you have 1000lbs in the car compared to just a driver, the suspension is going to spend more time compressed and be worked harder whether it is lowered on springs or not, and so it should wear out sooner.
In summary, if you sent 4 otherwise identical cars off in a caravan to drive an identical route for 300,000 miles, I would expect suspension components to begin needing repair/replacement in this order:
1. The lowered-inch-on-springs car with 1000 extra lbs in it.
2. The factory car with 1000 extra lbs in it.
3. The lowered-on-springs car with just a driver
4. The factory car with just a driver.
I'm not sure exactly where a lowered-on-coilovers car ought to fit into the list above, but if I had to gamble probably between cars 3 and 4. And who knows how long the shocks themselves will last...time will tell as the platform ages. And finally, it is obviously one thing to send a loaded-with-1000lbs car on a 300,000 mile journey and entirely another to do that just once or twice a year for just a few thousand miles, so car 1 and car 3 can't be directly compared in this way.
This is a great question and I hope this is helpful!
What this translates to in practice is that while an OEM damper might last 100,000 miles on the factory setup, lowering springs might reduce that exact same damper's life expectency to 60,000 miles. Or 70,000 miles. Or 30,000 miles. It really depends on the car (which the B9 S4 is a completely new platform and so nobody knows how the dampers inside it will hold up over a long haul nobody except probably Audi themselves has put that kind of mileage on one yet) how you drive, where you drive, how much you load the car, and a million other factors. But it should be expected that a car lowered on springs only will have a lower damper life expectancy than one that isn't. Such is common knowledge in the car modding community and a game everyone has to decide if they want to play. It is also not specific to Audi.
When you buy a coilover system, the spring rate and damper are engineered to match eachother exactly and so they can last much longer and provide a much more dialed-in ride that can take more abuse. This is a major selling point of such systems and why they are popular in racing (which is really their intended purpose especially when you get into 16-way adjustable damping with independently adjustable high speed/low speed compression, preload, and rebound), but coilovers are a lot more expensive than springs alone. For some cars it is also possible to buy a matched aftermarket spring + aftermarket damper set which provides a similar end result, sometimes for cheaper than a true coilover, but I'm not sure if that option exists yet for the B9.
Taking your question from another angle, consider the following:
1- Putting four people + a trunk full of gear in the car could add 1000 lbs to the curb weight.
2- Audi, in the owner's manual (and in some countries but not the US due to federal rules, on the door jamb sticker as well) provides two different tire pressures for each factory wheel & tire option, one for "normal load" and one for "max load." For your cross country driving your probably want to run at max load but for everyday loading you'll probably want to air down to normal load, which is a solid 8-10psi lower than the max load pressure. Go have a looksie in your manual and you'll see what I'm talking about. The lesson here is that tires can be loaded too, and Audi has some guidance for how to account for that for the best possible handling/safety/tread life/etc.
3- When you have 1000lbs in the car compared to just a driver, the suspension is going to spend more time compressed and be worked harder whether it is lowered on springs or not, and so it should wear out sooner.
In summary, if you sent 4 otherwise identical cars off in a caravan to drive an identical route for 300,000 miles, I would expect suspension components to begin needing repair/replacement in this order:
1. The lowered-inch-on-springs car with 1000 extra lbs in it.
2. The factory car with 1000 extra lbs in it.
3. The lowered-on-springs car with just a driver
4. The factory car with just a driver.
I'm not sure exactly where a lowered-on-coilovers car ought to fit into the list above, but if I had to gamble probably between cars 3 and 4. And who knows how long the shocks themselves will last...time will tell as the platform ages. And finally, it is obviously one thing to send a loaded-with-1000lbs car on a 300,000 mile journey and entirely another to do that just once or twice a year for just a few thousand miles, so car 1 and car 3 can't be directly compared in this way.
This is a great question and I hope this is helpful!
06-27-2018, 10:29 AM
#3
AudiWorld Junior Member
Thread Starter
If you are only doing lowering springs, but you are not changing the dampers to match those springs (or alternatively replacing both springs and dampers with a complete one-piece suspension system aka coilovers), then it should be an expectation that your OEM dampers will wear out faster than they would on the factory springs due to spending 100% of their time compressed an inch or so further than they were designed for at the factory whether you load the car up or not.
What this translates to in practice is that while an OEM damper might last 100,000 miles on the factory setup, lowering springs might reduce that exact same damper's life expectency to 60,000 miles. Or 70,000 miles. Or 30,000 miles. It really depends on the car (which the B9 S4 is a completely new platform and so nobody knows how the dampers inside it will hold up over a long haul nobody except probably Audi themselves has put that kind of mileage on one yet) how you drive, where you drive, how much you load the car, and a million other factors. But it should be expected that a car lowered on springs only will have a lower damper life expectancy than one that isn't. Such is common knowledge in the car modding community and a game everyone has to decide if they want to play. It is also not specific to Audi.
When you buy a coilover system, the spring rate and damper are engineered to match eachother exactly and so they can last much longer and provide a much more dialed-in ride that can take more abuse. This is a major selling point of such systems and why they are popular in racing (which is really their intended purpose especially when you get into 16-way adjustable damping with independently adjustable high speed/low speed compression, preload, and rebound), but coilovers are a lot more expensive than springs alone. For some cars it is also possible to buy a matched aftermarket spring + aftermarket damper set which provides a similar end result, sometimes for cheaper than a true coilover, but I'm not sure if that option exists yet for the B9.
Taking your question from another angle, consider the following:
1- Putting four people + a trunk full of gear in the car could add 1000 lbs to the curb weight.
2- Audi, in the owner's manual (and in some countries but not the US due to federal rules, on the door jamb sticker as well) provides two different tire pressures for each factory wheel & tire option, one for "normal load" and one for "max load." For your cross country driving your probably want to run at max load but for everyday loading you'll probably want to air down to normal load, which is a solid 8-10psi lower than the max load pressure. Go have a looksie in your manual and you'll see what I'm talking about. The lesson here is that tires can be loaded too, and Audi has some guidance for how to account for that for the best possible handling/safety/tread life/etc.
3- When you have 1000lbs in the car compared to just a driver, the suspension is going to spend more time compressed and be worked harder whether it is lowered on springs or not, and so it should wear out sooner.
In summary, if you sent 4 otherwise identical cars off in a caravan to drive an identical route for 300,000 miles, I would expect suspension components to begin needing repair/replacement in this order:
1. The lowered-inch-on-springs car with 1000 extra lbs in it.
2. The factory car with 1000 extra lbs in it.
3. The lowered-on-springs car with just a driver
4. The factory car with just a driver.
I'm not sure exactly where a lowered-on-coilovers car ought to fit into the list above, but if I had to gamble probably between cars 3 and 4. And who knows how long the shocks themselves will last...time will tell as the platform ages. And finally, it is obviously one thing to send a loaded-with-1000lbs car on a 300,000 mile journey and entirely another to do that just once or twice a year for just a few thousand miles, so car 1 and car 3 can't be directly compared in this way.
This is a great question and I hope this is helpful!
What this translates to in practice is that while an OEM damper might last 100,000 miles on the factory setup, lowering springs might reduce that exact same damper's life expectency to 60,000 miles. Or 70,000 miles. Or 30,000 miles. It really depends on the car (which the B9 S4 is a completely new platform and so nobody knows how the dampers inside it will hold up over a long haul nobody except probably Audi themselves has put that kind of mileage on one yet) how you drive, where you drive, how much you load the car, and a million other factors. But it should be expected that a car lowered on springs only will have a lower damper life expectancy than one that isn't. Such is common knowledge in the car modding community and a game everyone has to decide if they want to play. It is also not specific to Audi.
When you buy a coilover system, the spring rate and damper are engineered to match eachother exactly and so they can last much longer and provide a much more dialed-in ride that can take more abuse. This is a major selling point of such systems and why they are popular in racing (which is really their intended purpose especially when you get into 16-way adjustable damping with independently adjustable high speed/low speed compression, preload, and rebound), but coilovers are a lot more expensive than springs alone. For some cars it is also possible to buy a matched aftermarket spring + aftermarket damper set which provides a similar end result, sometimes for cheaper than a true coilover, but I'm not sure if that option exists yet for the B9.
Taking your question from another angle, consider the following:
1- Putting four people + a trunk full of gear in the car could add 1000 lbs to the curb weight.
2- Audi, in the owner's manual (and in some countries but not the US due to federal rules, on the door jamb sticker as well) provides two different tire pressures for each factory wheel & tire option, one for "normal load" and one for "max load." For your cross country driving your probably want to run at max load but for everyday loading you'll probably want to air down to normal load, which is a solid 8-10psi lower than the max load pressure. Go have a looksie in your manual and you'll see what I'm talking about. The lesson here is that tires can be loaded too, and Audi has some guidance for how to account for that for the best possible handling/safety/tread life/etc.
3- When you have 1000lbs in the car compared to just a driver, the suspension is going to spend more time compressed and be worked harder whether it is lowered on springs or not, and so it should wear out sooner.
In summary, if you sent 4 otherwise identical cars off in a caravan to drive an identical route for 300,000 miles, I would expect suspension components to begin needing repair/replacement in this order:
1. The lowered-inch-on-springs car with 1000 extra lbs in it.
2. The factory car with 1000 extra lbs in it.
3. The lowered-on-springs car with just a driver
4. The factory car with just a driver.
I'm not sure exactly where a lowered-on-coilovers car ought to fit into the list above, but if I had to gamble probably between cars 3 and 4. And who knows how long the shocks themselves will last...time will tell as the platform ages. And finally, it is obviously one thing to send a loaded-with-1000lbs car on a 300,000 mile journey and entirely another to do that just once or twice a year for just a few thousand miles, so car 1 and car 3 can't be directly compared in this way.
This is a great question and I hope this is helpful!
Thanks again...
06-27-2018, 01:02 PM
#4
AudiWorld Senior Member
Great information, I appreciate the reply. I kind of knew the answer but have never lowered my car before and therefore didn't know the full implications. You reply was certainly the type of information I was looking for and really didn't know how to analyze. I was surprised that even with the sports package, that the car was not lower and it still had decent fender gap. That was the only reason i was looking to lower it. However, you outlined other considerations to think about even if I wasn't looking at my particular situation when traveling.
Thanks again...
Thanks again...
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