For years I have been searching for lowering springs. Mina and H&R were way too dramatic. I wanted no more than 20mm. I have seen others post here over the years they were looking for the same thing but had not been able to find any. A couple of months ago I contact Matt @ Spires in the UK and he informed me he had custom made 15mm lowering springs from Eibach so I pulled the trigger with great enthusiasm. The fronts are linear and the rears progressive according to Matt.

Finally got them installed yesterday and had an alignment done.

As you will see by the pics below, the wheels/tires are now perfectly centered in the arch, just like BMW, and there is still enough gap remaining that the car looks OEM and not slammed at all. The current drop is actually about 10mm, like the XKR-S, but will probably settle another 5mm.

The alignment results are also perfect, as you can see in the pic below. Many members here have noted that after lowering, the rear camber was a bit more negative than the factory spec, well mine is in spec at -1.2 degrees.

First impressions are the car feels lower and a lot stiffer. Marketing materials for lowering springs indicate there is no loss in the quality of the Jaguar ride, but in this case, that is not true. The car is more sure footed, firmer & less bouncy, steers/handles better and takes hard cornering with less body roll. Reminds me a bit of a Cayman S. Probably not for everyone but I am very pleased with the results.

 

Jahummer it sits perfectly wish these were around before I fitted up my arden springs I find the rear just a little too firm

 

looks very nice. could you post a before and after? could you post an overall 3/4 or side view?


thank you.

 

This is arden springs in the front which does improve handling and stock in the rear

 

Do you know the rates on the springs?

 

For stock springs, the rear looks pretty low and the front looks really low, IMHO.

 

Jahunner I've checked my vin on the forum search and it did come up with sports suspension in the list unsure if this was an option to have xkr150 fitted or it says sports suspension on all the xk's

 

I asked Matt @ Spires and all he said was they were 15% higher than OE, so I guess if we could find out what the rates are on the OE springs we would know what his are.

 

Couple more angles. Pics make it look lower than it looks in person.

 

Nice

 

very nice Jahummer, i would now go for wheel spacers IMO, now lowered your wheels look more in under the arches than normal. 20mm on the front and 15mm on the rear would set off the look.

 

You may recall I had spacers on the Sentas a couple of years ago and the stance was perfect. So when I decided on a new wheel style I ordered them with custom offsets and wider so no spacers needed. They are currently 5mm retracted from the outside surface of the fenders and 9 inches front, 10.5 inches rear.

 

I pulled the trigger on those Spires Eibachs and I'm happy to confirm that they are the golden optimum.
The ride is sure but still comfortable, feels like my Jag got his *** of the sofa and did a HIIT training for a month, entirely different experience (in a good way).
The height is perfect to stay practical, any lower and they'd be a pain on less than perfect roads.
As a bonus it turned out that it was the OEM springs that were the source of some annoying sounds which are now gone.
They were quite pricey (springs 650 GBP, installation ~280 GBP), but around 35% of the cost was shipping, tax and customs (I had them shipped to Poland).
Still, I'd say the result is worth the price!

One thing that's making me wonder are my geometry specs which seem to be a lot different from yours @Jahummer
I've got 20mm front, 15mm rear H&R spacers, can this be the cause?

 

Thx, very nice! Could you post a link where you ordered your Eibach/Spires springs for your 5.0XK - I think abour replacing my (too low) H&R?

 

There's no link, I contacted Spires Tuning in the UK directly (https://www.spires-st.com/) via email, I dealt with Matt who helped me with every question I had.
They have this Eibachs custom made just for their garage, you won't get them anywhere else.

They just got their current batch around 2 weeks ago, if you hurry, you might still get them, I'd imagine they're a hot commodity 😄

Quick FAQ that I was interested in along the way so sharing:
- the springs have "XKXFR" marking because they were originally developed for XFR but they're good for XK and XKR (I've got 5.0 N/A)
- the spring don't upset CATS in any way (according to Spires, no faults so far, dynamic mode is still a bit stiffer than normal so active shocks work)

EDIT:
I did my homework before, read tens of threads on different forums and rejected H&R, Arden and Mina Gallery for this reason.
These are perfect

 

Thanks again for the info on the Spires springs. I have in my XK 5.0 (from 2010) the H&R springs, which are too low and also a bit too stiff for me. I am in contact with Spires, who confirmed in an email that the offered Eibach springs fit the XK/XKR and the XFR (!). It is well known that Eibach springs are not offered anywhere else on the market for the XK.

But: I noticed that my H&R springs with code number 29117 also fit the Jaguar XF (among others type CC9) - this is stated in the H&R certificate. Eibach offers lowering springs also for XF (type CC9) - then these Eibach springs should also fit the XK (because H&R offers the same springs for both models)? Here are two offers with the matching cars (XK and XF):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/36296352254...3ABFBM3O39uuhi

https://www.ebay.com/itm/22445614944...Bk9SR8r8iLvoYg

If my assumption is correct, one could save the expensive shipping from UK with customs etc. and buy the XF Eibach springs for the XK (of course then without documents for testing/approval/correction of documents). Or do I not understand something correctly?

Thanks in advance, bernd

 

This could work, however with one caveat - Eibach ProKit typically lowers each vehicle it's produced for by 30mm, it's even listed in the ebay offer as 25-30mm lowering.

Spires custom Eibachs only lower by 15-20mm which is a sweet spot and the reason they're perfect for me.
I'm juuust clearing my underground parking ramp which angle was screwed up by developer, last weekend when I really packed the boot up I left with an unpleasant scrape.

Also XFR is only offered in 5.0 S/C so that's not a lot of weight and weight distribution difference (apparently) compared to 5.0 XK but there are a lot of XF engine versions out there which might necessitate different springs so be sure to check if you're not buying springs meant eg for 2.0d only.

Another thing is I can vaguely remember that in Germany, to pass an annual inspection you all your mods need to have TUV cert, which Eibachs have, only I'm not sure if they have to match the car (would make sense).

Personally if you can get them, I'd go with Spires, imo savings don't outweigh the risks and compromises. Germany is closer to UK than Poland so the shipping cost should be slightly lower 😄

EDIT: Also I found it's absolute key to have your wheel alignment/geometry redone after a week into riding with the springs. Once they settle, alignment is going to be all over the place, it feels perfect after adjustment, traction when accelerating, ride "effortlessness" is now everything one would expect from a Jag

 

I agree that spacers definitely improve the look.
So I asked to several specialists and they ALL expressed scepticism as they ALL said it puts damageable pressure and tension over the direction mechanical pieces that were not meant for this.
So for my 110.000 miles car I guess it's a NO.
For the lowering,I wish I could but I travel too often on French roads (full of speed limiter bumps)for it to be useable.

 

Spacers also improve the ride stability

But also increase turn radius.
Yes, they put some additional strain on driveshafts and in my previous car I did eat through a couple of sets.
This was a Renault Megane III however, 170bhp stock, I tuned it up to 210bhp, slammed it 45mm down with coilovers and the problem manifested at that point 😄

If people are daily driving XKs with pulley tunes making out 650HP and who knows how many Nm I wouldn't worry about driveshaft endurance in our case, especially in an XKR, especially when lowering subtly like Spires Eibach.
Another example, XKR-S is lowered, from the top of my head, 10mm relative to XKR and afaik it doesn't have different driveshafts.
Just don't go crazy, there's lots of people with spacers here, having dealt with Megane shenaningans, I definitely did my homework before installing.
One other thing is that XK is RWD - rear wheels are always (more or less) straight, you don't use them to steer so lowering/spacers don't have as adverse effect on driveshaft joints as it would have on FWD.

Specialists not specializing in tuning will always tell you to not mod your car because later down the road, they don't want to be the ones dealing with your potential problem that's hard to diagnose, mostly they just want easy money doing standard brake jobs in VAGs. If you found one that doesn't fit in the latter, treasure him/her

 

Ever since @jahummer initiated this thread, I have thought “I’m going to do that…. The moment I need new shock absorbers.”

its not that I need new ones. The originals after all these miles and years andhard driving are still doing the job effectively. That surprises me!
But they are no longer “pretty”! Thanks for adding to this thread. I now have another worthwhile winter project.

And All, Please stop highlighting necessary improvements!! I have enough projects already!!

Cheers.