My initial Strutmaster coilover experience

I finally broke down and purchased Strutmaster coilovers on 01/05/18. I had an intermittent leak in sub freezing weather from a front air spring. If I lived in a warmer climate I may have tried to keep the air springs, but seeing that it gets below freezing here every winter, I opted to get rid of the air as it seems that winter is the time they go south.

I had weighed my options pretty heavily and even considered BC Racing coilovers after talking to another forum member. I liked the option of tampering with ride height, but after talking to their rep he said I would need to purchase their in house struts down the road when they wore out, as the diameter was different than other struts. Chances are I won’t own the car that long, but I like to have the option of using a name brand strut if I wanted, such as a Bilstein. Even buying their struts I could live with, but when asked how long it would take to ship them, he told me Jaguar coilovers are made to order and they would take 3-4 weeks. I could wait, but in the off chance I needed a warranty replacement I would not be willing to wait 3-4 weeks.

So I went with Strutmasters based on several member’s experiences with them. I called and ordered the kit for the XJR, as I always thought the comfort air springs were always too soft. The sales person told me it would be here that Friday. Part of it arrived Saturday, and the rest Monday.

I installed the coilovers on Tuesday. Despite torquing everything to spec and installing per JTIS instructions, the front struts made noise right off the bat. (Definitely go by the JTIS instructions, SM instructions weren’t the greatest.) I gave them a few days, thinking they would settle in and stop making noise. The knocking noise persisted so I disconnected the front sway bar and end links to rule them out. After a test drive with those disconnected and the noise still present, I called Saturday morning and spoke to a female rep. She said the tech dept was closed but that I would be the first call Monday morning if I left a message with the tech dept, so I left a message.

Monday morning came and went, so I called both sales and tech departments and no one answered. At about 12:30PM their time I messaged the original salesman who sold me the kit and asked him to call me, as I could not get through. He called me and told me the tech dept just went to lunch but they would call when they get back. He also said they had “just been discussing” my issue and what to do about it. I took the last statement with a grain of salt as honestly I didn’t believe him and felt like I was getting played a bit at this point.

I waited a few more hours and I ended up messaging the salesman several times in the late afternoon and he told me the tech dept closed at 6PM, which was 30 minutes away. At ten minutes before closing I left messages on both the sales and tech answering machines, as no one would answer either line.

At 5 minutes before 6 their time my wife called from a different phone number and got an immediate answer from the female sales rep I had talked to on Saturday. I couldn’t help but feel my phone number had been intentionally ignored all day. I ended up speaking to her and she printed out the invoice and said I would have a call from her by 10AM their time the next morning, and seemed a little disappointed her co workers had not called back. Upon asking, she informed me their tech department closed at 5, not 6.

The next morning I received a call from the tech department at the specified time. Upon explaining my situation they said they would send out two new front coilovers.

That Friday I received the two coilovers and installed them in 1.5 hours (the original kit took me the better part of the day for four, taking my time...once you know the torque specs and how it goes together, it can be done quick). After a test drive, to my relief, the noise is gone.

I did not need to use their suspension message interrupter. I was able to unplug the ASM from behind the rear seat and do not have any fault codes. As a side note, for some reason I thought their module was a plug and play, but it needs to be spliced into the system behind the seat, so a little more permanent than what I had originally thought.

As a technical spec, I weighed the front springs on the bathroom scale. One front Bilstein air spring weighs 16 lbs, while one front SM coilover weighs 19 lbs.

I’m glad that Strutmasters sent replacements, but was a little disappointed that they initially sold me a faulty coilover. I ended up spending way more time than was necessary troubleshooting a new product. Upon my initial install of the front right coilover, their welded on lower shock nut came loose while tightening. I was able to hold it with a wrench and torque the bolt to proper specs, so I don’t believe this would cause the noise, but that is the corner where most of the noise would come from over sharp bumps...though I would get a little noise when the left front would hit a bump, too. It was difficult to pinpoint where in the front the noise came from, I only know it was worse on passenger side bumps.

Initial impressions are that the car sits a little higher than stock and is certainly stiffer, but based on other member’s reviews they say the height will lower and soften a bit over time.

I plan on selling the original air Bilsteins, but since I still have another XJ8 on airs I may hold onto them for a minute as back ups until I convert the other car.

I write this to make others aware of the way the company handled my warranty issue. Maybe they were just having an off day, I don’t know. It wouldn’t necessarily stop me from buying the product from them again, but if there were a better conversion company I would go with them. Also, if you have an issue with a SM product, make sure you talk to a rep who will remedy the problem.

Here are a few pics:

 

Excellent feedback, thanks

 

This is an excellent post!

I have just converted my XJ6 to coilovers (but I went with the BC Racing struts, really enjoy them especially their customisation)
Only problem I'm having is the annoying "CATS SYSTEM FAILURE" error message on the dash as unfortunately the BC Racing kit did not come with a message interrupter

I read your post before installing mine a few months ago (as like you said, BC Racing have a 4 week lead time) just to see how other people's experience with the conversion went and I decided that as mine is the same year as yours, I should not need the message interrupter... I was not so lucky!

I don't suppose by any chance you would like to sell your message interrupter (if you haven't already) to a fellow Jag owner? 😃😃
I would be eternally grateful, as I have already contacted Arnott EU and they refused to sell me just the interrupter 😞


Just to add some extra info for anyone attempting this... I had some HUGE issues with my Jag as I think the previous owner had gone deep sea diving with it and the front subframe (unfortunately mild steel not aluminium like the body) along with all the bolts was corroded to S**T!!
The upper A arm bolts (front) have that annoyingly designed spinning bolt with a nut on it and female hex (allen key) socket to undo the Nut. This design seems universal for suspension components across pretty much all manufacturers and I have taken them apart several times on other vehicles (inc. other Jags) and always thought to myself "what would happen if this Hex socket strips out?" Well after having had exactly that happen, I can tell you with confidence, that what would be a 2 hour job, now becomes an 8 hour job!!
I fixed the issue with a pair of vice grips, an angle grinder and a stick welder
I had to cut the bottom of the nut off of the spinning bolt with the angle grinder, so I had enough thread to use the vice grips on to undo the nut. (this is much easier said than done as you have to be very careful not to grind the threads off the bolt.)
After you get the nut most of the way off the bolt, you have lots of play in the top mount, so now you can take the vice grips off the bottom of the threaded bolt, and use them on the top of the bolt where it tapers into the ball joint. I thought I was plain sailing now, however, for some unknown reason, aswell as the threaded bolt spinning freely to the ball joint, it also spins freely to the tapered top section!?! (This must be due to the nut being so stuck on there, not at all helped by the huge amount of threadlock used on it by the factory, as I cannot think of another reason as to why this is a 3 piece spinning assembly)
Here is where the welder comes in (cutting off the upper A arm did occur to me at this point, but at about £100 / side + more probably seized chassis bolts, it was not a very appealing idea)
So I welded (using 2.5mm 6013 electrodes) the threaded bolt and ball joint seat, only about 1/2 the way around, just enough to stop them spinning from each other. This is very difficult as there is limited room between the tapered top bolt and the wheel hub extending arm seat. Making matters worse, the ball joint aswell as the rubber gaiter gets very hot when welding onto it (as you would expect) so you have to stop every 3 seconds and pour water on it, to stop it catching on fire and destroying itself - ask me how I know 😂
eventually, I got the upper A arm and the hub extension arm separated and all was well... Until you get to the bottom strut bolt.
This bolt (like all Jags have incorporated into some part of their lower hub assembly) has a stupid T55 Torx head and was badly corroded as was the nut it threads into.
After hitting it with the 400ft/lb air impact gun and nothing moving, I knew this was going to be just as buggered as the A arm... and it was.
I then used the breaker bar and with all my weight on it, still did not budge and just stripped out the Torx head.
So I had to go and buy a load of 16mm flange head nuts (biggest I could find) along with some concentrated phosphoric acid (to take off the zinc coating from the nut)
Then I had to grind down the Torx head bolt and weld up the chewed up Torx head and then weld this HUGE *** nut to the bolt, which took ages as, like the upper ball joint, you have take 5 second breaks at least aswell as quenching with water, so you don't burn the bushing around the bolt.
I tried this with an M12 nut at first and it just plain sheared right off! The first M16 nut also snapped off, so once again I repeated the steps above.
Eventually the bottom bolt loosened and all was well with the world again, and the rest of the procedure went smoothly... Until the other front side where I had to do exactly the same to both the A arm and the strut bolt 🙄
Total time of the conversion took 16 hours work across 2 days (13 hours on the front and 3 on rear!)
I should add, the rear shocks come off like a breeze (probably, maybe jaguar, because you used a 21mm Hex bolt and not a stupid *** T55 Torx head!!🙄&#128580

I hope anyone reading this has a much easier time than I did (and yes I did use loads of WD-40 on all the bolts and I let it sit for a day)

The new ride is now (2 weeks later) very pleasant, pretty much the same as stock but without all of the problems
I turned the BC Racing dampers to the softest setting on the rear, and half way on the fronts and this was perfect for me
Also, I increased the ride height about 2 inches higher than stock and it looks and feels great!
Would thoroughly recommend this conversion