I guess so.

 

One of the wires got twisted and broke on my CATS rear shock which sent the car into a suspension fault/stiff mode. I just decided to replace them with standard shocks. The other side rear wire was twisting as well and probably wouldn't have been far behind. I have 20" BBS wheels and honestly don't note any ride difference. My primary reason for the standard shocks, though, was that it's a 20 year old British car and I'm not getting any younger and just like to simplify things when the opportunity arises.

 

I fully understand. Cost-effective simplicity beats expensive complexity in these aging cars every time....

 

That was also my thinking, I also have the 20" wheels. I don't need to replace then as of yet but when I do I will have to make a decision. I assume if you downgrade you have to remove the CATS module in the boot so no fault codes display.

 

IIRC I believe the module is still there, but simply unplugging it will remove the fault message. That's what I did when the wire broke and I got the message since CATS was inoperable at that time anyway.

 

Makes sense thanks. Would you say the car has more body roll in corners now that the CATS has been removed or can you not relaly tell any difference. I don't corner the car to it's limits but it's nice how flat the car stay around a corner at the moment.

 

The default setting for the CATs is hard mode, so you won't get more body roll in corners, your body will feel it over bumps though.

 

For the driving that I do, which also includes some curvy back roads, I personally don't note much of a difference. It seems a little more soft with normal driving, which I like. I'm sure I took it into more extreme curves I'd notice a difference but I haven't tried it yet.

 

Interesting, I thought the default was soft mode. I ask because once I got the fault the car got and stayed very stiff, which for me was a motivating factor to get the problem taken care of.

 

I did try it by unplugging the front shocks. It was a very harsh ride, far too harsh. I didn't get much above 20mph it was that bad.

 

The default mode is hard - for safety you don't want soft shocks if you are going to be driving at speed. I did wonder about your comment where you said you couldn't tell the difference when you removed the CATs after they went into fault mode - you replaced stiff shocks with stiff shocks.

Also its worth bearing in mind that not every fault on the CATs system displays the fault message. A broken wire to a shock will trigger the message. A faulty sensor won't.