Its thanks to a little concept called 'preload'. The relaxed spring is longer than the reach of the damper,so its compressed whilst seated in a fully open damper. If you only cut into half of this preload,there will still be enough preload left to hold the spring in place.

Each case is specific,if the taper of the coil will even allow it,so some common sense and intelligence are required.

Despite any 'ifs' and 'buts', cutting springs in dangerous.

Even one coil, they arent made to be chopped up, and this isnt a toy you're fucking about with, its an 800kg+ car.

I had 2/3 coils off mine at one point, ride quality was wank, it ruined my shocks and failed my MOT. They never popped out but that doesnt mean i felt safe on the things!

Just cough up the measly £60-odd and buy actual lowering springs.. or, if you value your shocks and want to go lower/ actually improve handling, get a real shock and spring kit.

£140 delivered isnt exactly wallet rape is it? more like a cheeky grope.. :p

It isn't dangerous, i dont care what anyone says, I'm a mechanic so I'm know what I'm talking about!

Obviously if you cut way too much, ie -in half ,then it wont do the car any favours, but it still isn't dangerous. I'm sick of all these people thinking that it is a life threatening thing to do, when they know fuck all about cars!

Grow some balls and get the angle grinder out!!!

^^^yeah but if people didn't regurgitate bullshit they had been told and state it as fact the internet would be a boring place.

chopping springs isn't dangerous, yeah the handling of the car is affected, yes the ride quality is affected but as long as you bare that in mind while driving it then there shouldn't be a problem.

my old mk3 golf had chopped springs (not subtly chopped either ), i got to no how it handled and i got to know its limits, and after i got used to it i could rag the shit out of it with confidence. never lost it, never even came close, apart from a bit of lift off over steer but that was easily controllable, fun and nothing to do with the suspension.

surely if chopping springs was so dangerous then every body that has had chopped springs on there car would be saying its really bad don't do it, followed by an anecdote about how there car was written off after being catapulted off the road into a tree the first time they tried to take a bend. which doesn't seem to be the case at all as most of the people in this thread that have driven cars with them are saying its not, go figure

Ok, firstly, i do know about cars, and i did get the angle grinder out. After taking 2 coils off, which dropped the car about 40mm..

When you jacked the car up, when the car begins to lift up and the wheels stay on the ground for a while, there was a gap between the top of the spring and the top mount.

So, if driving fast, if the wheels became unsprung, say on a hilly road, hump-back bridge etc, the spring would be floating, until the car dropped again.

So with that in mind, how the fuck is that safe?

When you jacked the car up, when the car begins to lift up and the wheels stay on the ground for a while, there was a gap between the top of the spring and the top mount.

So, if driving fast, if the wheels became unsprung, say on a hilly road, hump-back bridge etc, the spring would be floating, until the car dropped again.

So with that in mind, how the fuck is that safe?

my gti is like that now and that has a proper -80mm kit on it, if it was so dangerous then how would it be legal to sell them?

I've got an 80mm kit on too, and the shock holds the spring in place.

Even in your case the shock would be shorter to match the spring, instead of a 15 year old standard length one, being over-compressed, leaking fluid, with a loose fitting spring resting on top of it.

i can go and take a pic of my spring hanging out if you want? (altho it would be a ball ache lol) it defo don't stay seated when jacked up.

besides not every one will be running 15 year old shocks with oil leaking all over the place

My coilover springs don't say seated when the car is jacked up

^^^and there at there highest setting.

Actually I think you'll find my Mk2 has been lowered as much as yours was, you just had smaller tyres!

its no good bragging about how low your car is when its sat in a barn covered in chickens.

I am speaking from actual personnal experiece, but I'm clearly not going to win.

I say its dodgy no matter what, it will fuck standard shocks, that's a fact at least.

If you're lopping off multiple coils i certainly wouldn't rag it over unlevel roads etc.

Just take this for instance.. doing 50-odd on a B-road, 2 or so coils chopped off, on standard shocks...

The road is hilly, so on certain places, the wheels almost leave the ground. Now imagine, at that instance, the shock will be decompressed, and the spring will be doing nothing. When the car drops back down, the shock will compress harder and quicker, due to no spring coils being present to dampen the compression. The shock compresses and finally meets the spring, at which point it is dampened.

Now that's gonna happen over and over if you're driving on a road like that, so even if you cant accept that is at least slightly dangerous, the ride quality and handling, in that instance, is going to be fucking shite. End of.

I think all you are saying is that you should use shortened shocks.

The road is hilly, so on certain places, the wheels almost leave the ground. Now imagine, at that instance, the shock will be decompressed, and the spring will be doing nothing. When the car drops back down, the shock will compress harder and quicker, due to no spring coils being present to dampen the compression. The shock compresses and finally meets the spring, at which point it is dampened.

mine does that now (or i would imagine thats what going on uder there, its hard to see when you hitting 90 )

Now that's gonna happen over and over if you're driving on a road like that, so even if you cant accept that is at least slightly dangerous, the ride quality and handling, in that instance, is going to be fucking shite. End of.

no one said the handling or ride quality would be good (infact i think most said it was shit me included, so no arguing there), but i don't see how it is dangerous, obviusly you need to be aware that its not going to handle great, but as long as you are aware of that that theres no problem.

But if you were there when you chopped your springs, then you would know that they were chopped!

Therefore, you would go caining it down a "hilly" road at stupid speeds trying to get air! Which you wouldnt be doing in a lowered car in the 1st place!

If you was doing 50mph, as stated, that is not enough speed for the wheel to leave the ground, and even if it did, the spring cant really go anywhere as it has the shock absorber shaft is going through the middle of it!

And people dont usually chop their springs for handling benefits, they do it cos it looks cool. The ride and handling would be not much better than with lowering springs on standard shocks, or likewise with coilovers wound all the way down. So a lowered car will be shite for daily use whatever you do, so I'm game for the cheapest option to be honest, and I'm dealing with it OK!

Get over it!

And people dont usually chop their springs for handling benefits, they do it cos it looks cool. The ride and handling would be not much better than with lowering springs on standard shocks, or likewise with coilovers wound all the way down. So a lowered car will be shite for daily use whatever you do,

my mk3 golf was slammed on chopped springs, my mk2 1.3 (the nonse mobile ) was slammed on coilovers wound all the way down. both handled the same, very bouncy, skipped a but when ragging it and hit the floor quite a lot. as you say if you lower a car to extremes it will handle shit any way, no matter how you go about lowering it.

I think the conclusion of this thread is:

You get what you pay for.

This applies to cutting, coilovers and springs/dampers.

^^ Agreed.

Fair enough chopping the springs is cheaper but i ruined my shocks doing so, which failed the MOT. They wanted £60 each for new ones.

PhilJ kit, 80/60 for £125. And it handles miles better, its stiffer but actually more comfortable as its not bouncing everywhere, and no longer feels like you're being kicked up the arse when you hit a pot hole.

to be honest, like alot of threads that come up,

if you have to ask you probably shouldnt be doing it.

It seems Smithy is only talking about cutting multiple coils and cutting beyond the preload. Therefore,surprise surprise,his springs were loose as they were far too short. But then he goes on to say cutting springs is dangerous.

No,but cutting them too much may well be.

My standard shocks have done over 30k miles with chopped springs. No signs of bounce/handling problems,and the ride is smooth.

Its probably a bit like him saying 'out of date food will make you very ill' just because he ate some raw chicken that was two weeks out of date,washed it down with lumpy milk,and needed three days off work. But I've eaten some cheddar that was a day over,and it did me no harm. So out of date food is fine. As long as you dont take the biscuit. :jose_mouriniho:

I've got the lowest kit you can buy for a Mk2 polo and it just isnt low enougth

You dont understand how tempted i am to cut a single coil off the front ..

Despite been told not too i think I'm going to have to at some point beofre poloshow :-D

Same here mate i got the lowest kit u can buy for a mk2 and it just wernt low enougth so i cut a coil off and i still wernt happy so i cut another coil but the spring was no longer compressed in the seat so i brought two top mounts for a mk3 golf and put the standered polo one on top of them and now there compressed agen and yer I'm happy being down 100mm :-D

Edited 8 August, 200818 yr by Streetsleeper85

It seems Smithy is only talking about cutting multiple coils and cutting beyond the preload. Therefore,surprise surprise,his springs were loose as they were far too short. But then he goes on to say cutting springs is dangerous.

No,but cutting them too much may well be.

My standard shocks have done over 30k miles with chopped springs. No signs of bounce/handling problems,and the ride is smooth.

How meany did u cut off.

Of the standard spring,i removed one full link when i fitted new shocks at 54k. I then replaced the springs with 40mm progressive-rate jobs at circa 65k,which had the front looking no different,and removed half a front coil immediately.

The clocks have now reached 96k on the same setup.

That's actually now a full 42k on the same shocks,always running with cut springs. But not exactly cut in half.