All,


Sorry for the silence since the middle of last year, but the doctors have rebuilt me at a cost of less the $6 million dollars!


Joking aside, my little girl went in for its MOT and failed!!!!!


Its the top bush has gone, I did wonder why there was a bang every now and then. So the garage wants to put KYB's on the back, which I have not heard of......


So what to do folks?


I am interested in not destroying the balance of the car.

KYB shocks are a well respected brand.

neilwill said:

All,


Sorry for the silence since the middle of last year, but the doctors have rebuilt me at a cost of less the $6 million dollars!


Joking aside, my little girl went in for its MOT and failed!!!!!


Its the top bush has gone, I did wonder why there was a bang every now and then. So the garage wants to put KYB's on the back, which I have not heard of......


So what to do folks?


I am interested in not destroying the balance of the car.

Click to expand...

Mine also failed on the same last month - I also wondered what the banging was.


KYB fitted now. No banging.

I have people seen referring to them as: Keep Your Bilsteins, but that was on another car of another make.
On the bright side: they are pretty inexpensive.

gr J

KYB are an OEM for Subaru and are very well respected.

At how many miles did the bush fail?

My rears went at 22k.

fpan said:

KYB are an OEM for Subaru and are very well respected.

At how many miles did the bush fail?

My rears went at 22k.

Click to expand...

My car's 4 years old and 20500 miles, so about that!

AFAIK they are Kayaba - and possibly still made in Japan..,

were standard kit on Japanese motorbikes in my day.

Charlie

AB100 said:

My car's 4 years old and 20500 miles, so about that!

Click to expand...

Fiat quality
Yes KYB are Kayaba and they are a japanese company.

Well here's what's going to happen.
Koni STR T's are going on the rear.
I have a little sleeve to take it from 10 to 12mm dia.
So I'm sorted doing it on Friday I hope demon tweaks.....
I think the thing that swung it for me was Dan Friel said nice things about them.

Anyway, mine failed at 32000 and 8 years old so not bad!!

Just need to convince Mrs W that the fronts need doing to.

Hi Neil!

I've now got the car and that used to be Dan's!

The trouble is....I can't compare it to a standardly damped 100hp as I've not driven one! (Other than a tiny test drive years ago)

Its still by far the hardest riding car I've owned, but Dan said having the konis on the rear vastly reduced the bounce (I can confirm it doesn't really bounce) and having the sports on the front helped matters too.

I hope you haven't watched Dans videos LoL
For me the ride adds to the car, the handling is a great feature of the car. Personally the ride is no worse than an original mini, not sure what that says about progress.... The idea was not to fix the bounce but to help her in the bends - yellows on the front hmmm more money.

He he, yeah, fully aware of this cars racing pedigree!

Gets much gentler use now. The handling is great (although I'm still on the all weather tyres at the moment) but I'm just as impressed with the strong flexible and characterful engine and general liveliness of the whole thing. Also, love the looks.

yeah that, the engine! only in Italy

Update
The OEMs have gone, and the bright orange Konis are on.
Ok firstly my thanks to Demon Tweaks for getting them in so quickly, and Crewe engineering for making me some nice sleeves.
The good news is the banging rumbling has gone so we changed the right part!
So to the important information what's the difference?
It is stiffer, I know they need running in, but the back end does not depress when you turn in, so currently the front end is a little more understeary. So may be a tyre pressure adjustment, running stock at the moment. The ride, it feels more controlled and not over sprung.
For me the biggest problem is now how soft the front end is the two at this time don't feel the same. My car was much more on the nose, with the rear following, just.

Let's get the car through the MOT now the side light bulb has been changed with all skin in-tacked, and do some more miles po-go free!

I picked up a pair of these last week and with weather being how it is they're still in their boxes! What's the situation with these sleeves? Is it not possible to fit them without?

The sleeve just takes out the play in that top 10mm bolt, the shocks have a 12mm hole, it's a better job.
You don't need them on the bottom just the top.
Fit and see what you think, it makes the front of mine feel shabby and uncontrolled.
However, didn't fiat do a great job with the parts bin on set up!

Thanks Neil.

Would something like this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12MM-OD-X...740?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4ad861db7c

do the job?

Have you had a look at the front suspension arms on yours? I replaced mine last month and it made the car feel a lot more confident in higher speed corners.

I can't get the link to run but yes from the description I'd say so.
In short no on the arms, but she feels ok in that way, it's more the up and down and dive.
I'm sure that's a dance!

paulbfd said:

Have you had a look at the front suspension arms on yours? I replaced mine last month and it made the car feel a lot more confident in higher speed corners.

Click to expand...

At what mileage did you replace the suspension arms (wishbones?) and what were the symptoms?

Thanks Neil, I'll get some ordered.

fpan:

It wasn't symptoms as such that lead me to replace them, more the M62.

There's some road works near Manchester and when we had a cold spell a huge pothole had formed where they'd blasted the old painted lines off. Luckily it was in an average speed zone so I was only doing 50mph when I hit it but it went with the sort of bang in which you brace yourself for something to happen!

I took it to the guy who services / MOTs it and sure enough there was play in the drivers side arm, psychologically I couldn't cope with just one side being done so replaced them both!

After replacing them it just felt so much more planted. I do a lot of motorway miles these days and a prime example is when leaving one motorway to join another and there's a maximum speed warning of say 40mph, it just didn't feel quite right. Now those "I'm in that hedge in a minute" feelings have gone.

Such was the improvement it lead to me buying the Koni shocks to try make things even better.