Golf MKV Suspension Installation

[Ishy.Arshad]

Hi,

I'm a newbie to cars, and have had a set of coilovers waiting around while I finished off painting and refurbishing my rims.

It's come time to get them installed, ideally I want to do them myself, in that case after installing them, to set them up what would I need to do?

In the case that I can't install them myself, I've been struggling to find a mechanic that would offer me a decent price, I went to a garage close to me and they quoted me £330, which sounds a bit high, Another garage has quoted £120 but I feel like he doesn't know what he's talking about and don't really want to risk it. Does anyone know of a decent mechanic around Manchester to help me out?

I appreciate any help you guys have to offer!

[GreenV8S]

The main issues are going to be:

1. Bleeding the damper.
2. Mounting the spring on the damper body.
3. Adjusting the spring seats to suit the car.
4. Adjusting the damping rate to suit the car.

I don't know which of these are applicable to your specific situation, but if you do need to mount the springs to the damper body then some of the ways for that to go wrong can lead to serious injuries.

[thebraketester]

GreenV8S said:

The main issues are going to be:

1. Bleeding the damper.
2. Mounting the spring on the damper body.
3. Adjusting the spring seats to suit the car.
4. Adjusting the damping rate to suit the car.

I don't know which of these are applicable to your specific situation, but if you do need to mount the springs to the damper body then some of the ways for that to go wrong can lead to serious injuries.

None... :-)

You'll need to fit the front top mounts to the spring/damper assembly. Rears are a piece of piss.

[xjay1337]

Google it.
There are literally hundreds of DIY guides on changing coilovers on a Mk5 Golf.

[Ishy.Arshad]

So would you guys recommend me doing it myself rather than going to a mechanic? I'm more than happy to do it myself, but I want to make sure that they're set up properly

[InitialDave]

I'm struggling to see how any mechanic could fail to do the job, what makes you think the £120 guy can't do it?

Setting it up nicely and checking the angles of everything, that's another matter, so you might want to budget for an alignment session as well. Did the higher price include that?

IIRC correctly the front struts on those are clamped into a collar on the front upright, which can be something of a dick to get apart in situ if it's a bit crusty, but aside from that it should just be a bolt off/bolt on routine.

[Ishy.Arshad]

The £120 guy just looked like he was unsure of what a coilover looks like, and the higher price didn't include the allignment, it was an extra £75 on top to get that done.