Cutting car springs.

[Hayden]

Hey, a while ago i cut my back springs in my car. They are just normal coil springs. Now the back sits low and the front is high. Will it hurt if i cut my front springs a little bit? Im not worried about the springs, i have heaps of sets of stock spring plus im too poor to buy lowered springs. I dont car if the car drives rough, its a piece of shit anyway. Will it hurt anything and will it make the car unsafe? if so how?

Cheers.

Topic

[Mike]

Anybody who considered themselves “legally liable” would pretty much have to tell you it’s unsafe. How much of a problem is it really? It’s beating up the struts more than usual and seems fine until you need have some driving emergency requiring evasive maneuvers. It might go ok, but how do you know?

Technically, it will hurt the strut/shock absorber to do this. The difference between lowering springs and cut springs that are the same height is that the lowering springs are stiffer and make it so the same amount of weight (the car) will not normally compress the spring far enough to damage the shock absorber internally. The stiffness of the stock spring was designed to do the same thing but shortening the length of the spring changes it.

If the spring is short enough that you don’t need a strut/spring compressor tool to take it apart or the end of it isn’t in the right spot on the spring seat, it fall off to the side and hurt stuff if the car is jumped or has other violent suspension movement.

If the struts/shocks are worn out, it will be unsafe at speed regardless of whether the springs are cut or not. If the cut springs wear out or damage them, you’ll be in that position of unpredictable handling and excessive bouncing.

[Lorrin Barth]

On the positive side, it is one way to align your headlights.

[Author]

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