i was thinking about this on the way home from work today.and realized i wasnt happy with the ride of my car. i just replaced the struts with the kyb oe replacement grx's. this is on stock springs. im contemplating putting some old skunk2 coilover sleeves on them, but leaving them all the way up so the drop would be an inch or less i think. which would be more detrimental to the longevity of a strut, how low the car is or how stiff/soft the spring is?

i was leaning toward ride height but i really dont know much about it, so i figured id ask so i can learn more

 

Both, paired with the wrong shock choice.

 

(We don't have struts, we have shocks)

A myriad of things. Nothing will blow a shock if it's high quality and is damped with your particular spring rate and suspension travel in mind.

Shocks typically blow due to being beat up by excessive rates for the damping of the shock, or pushing the designed shock travel beyond it's designed function.

Stiff springs like the skunk2's paired with OEM replacements like the GR2 is asking for the shocks to blow.

It's simple, if you want comfort get a sport/OEM shock with soft rates. You limit the amount you can lower the car safely, and the car doesn't handle much better.

Or you can get a sport/race shock and use 400lbs+ rates and get better handling and lower your car with less risk of blowing the shock.

Quality of the product is a prevalent variable in any shock designed for any use. If you buy a shoddily made race shock and run stiff rates you're still going to blow it. That principle is ubiquitous to any product.

 

To expand on this.
Both, for cheaper shocks intended as stock replacements.
Just spring rates, for shocks intended to accommodate a range of ride heights (Illumina, Koni Sport, AGX, etc...).

Bottoming out the shock is the real killer of shocks, and will ruin any shock regardless of whether it was paired with the "correct" spring rates and ran at the intended ride height or not.

 

yeah i honestly would be happy if i could not lower the car at all. im too old to ride around slammed. however, i dont mind a little stiffer rate so i can have it handle a little better. i wasnt looking to get like 10 years out of these kyb struts, but i didnt want them to blow in 3 months either. id be more than happy with 2 years of service out of them, as i usually dont keep cars much longer than that.



i was sort of under the mindset that too soft of a spring would be bad as it would compress much more and put more of the weight/force on the strut causing it to have more travel and possible bottom out.

 

Both will take a toll on stock shocks or replacements, if I was going to upgrade shocks for stiff rates I would personally go with the Skunk2 sport shocks. They may not be the best, but they're made to be used with Skunk's springs which have stiff rates and they aren't badly priced either.

 

crappy roads.......

but really due to springs that are too stiff for shocks