Right gentleman, simple question. How long would you expect a set of coilovers to last?

 

My BC BR's bought nearly new 2 years ago, 12000 miles, will be off my car very soon due to near side rear knocking, I would hope 5 years, 30000 miles depending upon useage but probably not from something costing £800

 

Right, I'd highly recommend not driving it until you've had a chance to check the state of the springs. Given that I've had the same coilovers on mine for 2.5 years (aprox 30k miles) and have just discovered the drivers rear spring has broken in 3 places.

 

thanks, I had the coilover off and gave it a good checkover, spring was quite corroded but still functional. I re-set the pre-load which I was advised could cause knocking if done incorrectly. When I say off the car I mean in the bin.
Trev

 

Depends, if you take it to the clinic, not long

 

Well on further investigation it looks like there could've been some sort of material flaw as the spring has actually split along its length up/down of the main crack.

Gonna have to get in touch with BC and see what they've got to say as its not a normal looking failure (especially after 2.5 years).

 

Can tell you now what apex will say about it -

It was fitted wrong, give me money for replacement.

 

Its a pay your money type quality thing i think, you buy the bottom end of the market product, dont expect them to last anywhere near the likes of KW's for example.
Considering that the standard suspension is suppose to last a good 100k+ miles with ease, you should be looking at the same for coilovers.

 

i had bcs and they were utter cheap shonky knocky chinese crap.
binned em and returned to oem sti and it was 1000 times better.

 

My Tein flex have been on 10 years, I have had to replace the front and rear upper mount, th erear one corroded round one of the mounting bolts and the front one due to me not greasing them sufficiently the camber adjusting bolts on the pillow ball seized so bought new items due to wanting car on road quickly. I have also replaced the front springs due to a snapped coil. The car does get punished so not surprised the spring went. Every time I have needed parts Tein UK have been great.

 

Well just to wrap this one up, Apex did refund the cost of the spring in the end. I just want to say a big thanks to Len at Subaru4you for his help dealing with Apex (he went well beyond the call of duty), it certainly wasn't simple but we got there eventually.