Coil Springs Replacement

[antis]

My car is a TOYOTA Corolla 2.0 Diesel 1998 (model CE110)

I'm going to replace my cars suspensions and I want to lift the front part of the car at lease 5 cm. After a long talk with my mechanic he suggested to change the Coil Springs to longer and a bit stronger ones.

What do you think?

Will the car behave the same way in the motorway?

Will I be able to drive the car off-road better than now?

Edited September 18, 2015 by antis

[chan5]

We think that your mechanic is so retarded and you should change him immediately.

Coil springs are usually life long alot say.and I too believe that.there are no specific requirement to change coil spring unless you have ground clearance issue.

If you really wanna try,there are used coil springs for almost any jap car.easy buy and fix.I saw on KYB part manual that they say the coil spring should be changed every 80-100k intervals .

if you want a short cut, there are fabricated spaceres you can fix between shock mount and chassy.then obviously you would need longer mount bolts,and being originals are welded to mount,this will be quite difficult task.

I had those spaceres on my carina when I got it,the first thing I did was removing those.

Added height will cause you wobbly ride at corners,alignment isssues and vehicle stability problems, nose diving while braking.

Adding stiff coils from another model will compromise your comfort, will loose every nut and bolt with time,make rattles where you cant find the origin. Coilovers are there for speciliced use cars which require handling on the expense of comfort.I believe cirolla is not one of them.

To give an idea how bad the experience is,my brother has WRX STI 3 with so called hard coil springs.it shows no wobble at any corner,but it causes backache for me if I drive 50-60 km on it.you feel every rut and pot of the road.that the price he pay for handling.

[antis]

Chan5 I didn’t understand everything you wrote but in general I think you disagree.

Just to refresh what I have asked is that I want to lift the car a bit so I can take the car to some off roads without compromise car behavior on the motor way.

Is there a way?

[Strikeee]

If you summarize what chan5 told, increasing the ride height will result in poor handling and ride comfort.

Why don't you try to put some tyres with a taller outside diameter. This will allow you to increase ride height (from a half inch to 2 inches in some models)

[antis]

hi guys

If I replace my car tyres from 185/65 r14 to 185/70 r14 how many centimeters in heigh I will I gain?

and I dont mean what is the difference from one tyre to another in diameter.

I found this usefull https://www.tacomaworld.com/tirecalc?tires=185-65r14-185-70r14

[Sierra Charlie]

hi guys

If I replace my car tyres from 185/65 r14 to 185/70 r14 how many centimeters in heigh I will I gain?

and I dont mean what is the difference from one tyre to another in diameter.

I found this usefull https://www.tacomaworld.com/tirecalc?tires=185-65r14-185-70r14

What you gain in tyre height depends on a lot of things. For example, I'm on 195/65/14 now. The rim is 356mm and tyre Sidewall is 127mm. So the unsprung height of my tyres should be 610mm. However, the actual height of my front tyres as on the car is around 580mm. That's after accounting for the weight of the car, wear of the tyres, etc. (My car is a Mitsubishi Galant)

I'm planning to go for 205/65/15. That's 381mm for the rims, 133mm for sidewall. The total height in this setup is 647mm. I have a friend with the same setup of rims and tyres as this and the actual tyre height of his car is 610mm after accounting for weight of the car and tyre wear. (His car is a Chrysler PT Cruiser)

You would gain some tyre height, but at best marginal. Don't expect the gains to be spectacular.

I'm planning to upsize as well, hence the detailed reply.

[antis]

Finally I had the tyres replaced to 185/70 r14. I don’t think there was any improvement, but I need to replace the suspensions too.

Going back to my first thoughts on coil spring replacement and chan5’s idea on adding spacers between shock mount and chassis.
What do you think?

[chan5]

Spacers are not the smartest move.you may resort it to the last.

Beacuse it meddle the handling of the car.

[Aquaman]

Sell your car, buy a Hilux.

You cant increase your ride height asnd expect it to behave normally. YOu will have less control of your vehicle, suddne moves will make car unstable. and will topple and kill you and your passewngers or even innocent bystanders

[Hoonigan]

Aquaman is right. You can't expect the car to behave the same way after changing such a critical aspect of it. 5cm is a lot and the car will look terrible (which would be the least of your concerns)

If you swap springs to longer ones, you risk topping out your shocks and ultimately causing leaks and failure. And if you don't match the load capacity to the shocks, the car will either bounce around or be very uncomfortable to drive.

Doesn't the Corolla have decent ground clearence, especially with the taller tyres? Maybe all you need to do is slow down a bit when you're on a bad road?

[Aquaman]

What kind of roads are you travelling on? Since of late roads in Sri Lanka are not as bad and it is very rare to find really really bad roads.

[antis]

I don’t have any issues within the city. The car has very good drive feeling, it is not like other cars that you notice all the small road bumps.

It is about 16 years old and I have driven 276,000 kilometers.

The problems I have are related to my outdoor activities. The suspensions need to be replaced. I don’t know if this will help my issues. Before the tyres been replaced I had put some boxes in the street and I have checked that I’m touching at 13 cm.

I cannot go into any off-road with small stones it touches (10-12cm), and it is worse that the test I did because the street was flat. Off roads are not.

[VVTi]

Outdoor activities in the sense? Sweeping the garden? Potting plants? Watering plants? Football? What ungodly outdoor activities requires you to raise the ride height of a Toyota Corolla ???

Get an old beat up pick up.

Where on earth do you get 10-12cm rocks strewn across roads in LKA? DO you drive in some stone quarry?

[Nandimithra Opathella]

Do you have rear coil springs of Corolla AE111 and AE110? 

[iRage]

1 hour ago, Nandimithra Opathella said:

Do you have rear coil springs of Corolla AE111 and AE110? 

Hello...and welcome to the forum...please note that this thread has not been active for 5 years, so if you are reaching out to one of the members who replied in the past regarding the availability of coil springs; they might not reply or they might not have it by now.

Since the E110 Corolla/Sprinter is common/popular car; there are plenty of after market and direct replacement/genuine parts around the usual parts shops. Needless to say the agent is quite high priced (relatively) and might not have it readily in stock. You mentioned an AE111, what type AE111 do you have ?

[Nandimithra Opathella]

 

The wagon model is tje one I regerong to

[Nandimithra Opathella]

 

The wagon model is tje one I refering to

[iRage]

2 hours ago, Nandimithra Opathella said:

 

The wagon model is tje one I regerong to

What is an AE111 or AE110 wagon ? The E110 did not come in a wagon body. The wagon for those years was the E100 wagon (elephant back G/L/BZ Touring). (In fact the E110 uses the same platform and frame and many other components from the E100 because Toyota was having money problems to do a complete redesign)