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Hi all, I've just signed up to the forum and I'm after some advice. Hopefully this is the right place!
First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Roel, I live in Southampton (UK) and I have been an X-type owner since 2009. I also have two XJ40's, a Sovereign and a XJR.
The X-type is my daily driver. It's a "Classic" version with 2.0 V6 petrol engine in Quartz gray. It's done about 120K miles and I've never had any trouble with it, it's an awesome car:
Originally the car came with 16" alloys (as you can see in the picture) but I've always thought they are just a little too small for the car and don't really fill the wheel arch. So last week I managed to get my hands on a nice set if 17" Aguila alloys with good tires.
Having fitted the bigger wheels the car seems to sit quite high on its springs and there is still a lot of space between the top of the wheel and the wheel arch.
So to get a better look, I've been thinking about lowering the car slightly, maybe only 25-30mm or so, but from what I've been able to find that's quite a tricky job - so here's my question: Is lowering the car the right thing to do, and if so, is there a how-to or any advice or guidance anyone can offer? I have found some posts about lowering, but none of them show any great detail (sorry if I've missed anything!)
rvdz, lowering the car, you are going to have 1 option in the drop height unless you go custom. You are going to get 1.4" of drop (or about 35mm). All the drop springs for this car are that height. So, now you are on to cost and manufacturer quality.
The front is pretty straight forward. If you can swap out the front struts, you can swap out the springs. If you need some detail on installing struts, there are tons of videos on places like Youtube that will show you the whole process. The rears are pretty easy too. Lift the rear end of the car in the air, disconnect the sway bar end links, place a jack under the one wheel, disconnect the shock, let the wheel drop down to release all the spring tension, push down a little more to give yourself some room to pull the spring, pull the spring out. Install is the reverse. You may need to disconnect the top arm just to make it a bit easier to pull things apart. But that is the short of it. Not too difficult.
The one thing that you will need to think about is what shock you are going to put back in. In an ideal world, you would go with the Sport Bilstiens. Those are built around having the drop springs in there and will give you a pretty good ride (a little stiffer than you are used to, but most of that is the drop spring, not the shock itself). You can use your current shocks/struts, but you risk damaging the shock/strut if you hit a good pot hole and really flex the suspension. So, your call on that.
I thought I was going crazy, even Bilstein US flat out said they don't make the B8, or B12 for the x-type. After I checked a link you had I realized they were in Europe not the States. Thank you.
Lowering my '05 XK8 was done with Ademish(sp) springs and shims to re-align the rear. The Ademish springs are about half the price of HR's. Order the springs yourself and pay $600USD and let somebody else install them, unless you're an avid Do-It Yourself.
My old X308 has a pair of gas Boge in the back and a pair of Bilstein sport in front.
Add a driver, a passenger, a travel bag and a 50 lb tool box and I come up with 2 metric tons of a road-scorching very comfortable Jag, cornering at high speeds on France's horrendous country roads.
Lowering a suspension is not my thing, the springs will sag in time anyway.
08-28-2015, 02:07 PM
New member and question about lowering springs
