I'm about done with this suspension! A full set of Arnots and then a full set of RMTs, and now one is leaking and another is clunking. I'm finished throwing money at the stupid thing.

Who makes coilovers for our cars?

Even better, who has experience with them?

I'm not trying to spend a fortune, since a 2006 xj with 130k miles Blue Books for about the price of a fancy cup of coffee, however it's good to know the options available.

Thanks all!


Edit:
These have got to be absolute crap, but they are so cheap I might try them as a laugh. They are probably the Racelands for Jag:
https://www.suspensionclub.com/produ...04-10-c2c41349

 

I have installed several Arnott Industries coil conversion kits on X350s, and the owners have been very happy with them. I have also installed one Suncore coil conversion kit and I thought the performance was very similar to that of the Arnotts, with possibly even less body roll while cornering.

Our member x350 recently posted this research:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...2021-a-250068/

Cheers,

Don

 

YEP! Thanks as usual for not berating me for not finding/checking that thread in the search. I honestly did search, but IB likes to make me suffer, so I had about as much success as finding something on SharePoint.

I'll dig in. (still might buy those cheapies for spite. I think the Jag needs to become a project car soon, I wonder how light I could make it...)

 

I have sadly written RMT off. Their products for XJ seem to always be substandard recently.
Considering biting the bull it and going a full set of Arnott new struts all the way around. A little more than coil overs, but a warranty. Save a front and rear off car to allow replacement if needed.
I do not want to give up the air ride. I had an old Arnott on car. Pulled off and sent in. A new Arnott came back. Free.
I also have an Arnott air compressor. For three years no issues. But it is a rebadged Wabco.

 

I could not be happier with the Arnott coilovers I've installed. They have the module to remove the CATS error, that nobody else seems to have. Rockauto's price was the best I found, although it took them two tries to get them shipped to me... first shipment was rears only, and they wouldn't complete the order by simply shipping me the fronts, I had to return those and then they shipped me the correct complete set. Other than that snafu, I was happy with the price and the shipping time, installation was a DIY for me. They supplied a new bolt to replace the T60 at the front struts, so although you need to find or buy a T60 bit that you'll never ever ever need again, it was quite straightforward.

 

I finally gave up and went with Arnott coilovers. So easy, such a smooth ride, less roll, that I felt stupid for not doing it on day 1. No regrets!!

 

I fought the same thing. Many dollars on compressor rebuilds and air shock replacements. Best thing I ever did was convert to coils. The car has been 100% trouble free since then. So another happy Arrotts customer!

Yes looking back on it I made a big mistake fighting the air suspension system. Just too complicated and expensive to keep operating. What I can't understand is air suspension is used extensively on heavy over the road trucks with great reliability and very few issues. How come a much lighter car has so many problems??
.
.
.

 

truck airbags are a wear item

 

I have the BC Racing coilovers and they have been pretty good for me for the last few years. The ride height and dampening is adjustable.

 

I bought a front set of authentic Bilstein air springs last month . The "install by" date had passed by the time I got them on the car. They really do have a short lifespan.

 

I work on a wide variety of autos with air suspension, and once they achieve several years of age they all have problems. Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Chevrolet/GMC/Cadillac, Ford/Lincoln, etc. Some of those models have the advantage of separately-replaceable air bladders, which makes repairs substantially less expensive. But for others, like Cadillacs with the Magneride suspension, the air spring/shock absorber units are also very expensive. The combination of problems we face with the X350 is that the air spring/damper units can only be replaced as complete units, and the low production numbers mean we don't benefit from manufacturing economies of scale.

But for those willing to spend the money, the original Bilstein air spring/dampers really do provide the best possible performance. I've installed them on the fronts of a couple of X350s and at all four corners of an X350 XJR, and the ride is literally world-class even by today's standards, with remarkable smoothness and control. Most X350 owners don't realize just how good the suspension was when new.

Cheers,

Don

 

I had a Goodyear service center install Arnott C-2290 coil/springs on my 2005 Jaguar in 2014, and I never looked back. In my opinion, the ride was even superior to the trouble prone air suspension system. In fact, with the former air suspension, I always experienced a thump in the rear every time I went over some bump on the road. I mean, I would have never expected something like that from an expensive luxury sedan. Actually, I see that the Arnott C-2290 coil/springs conversion kit is available on Amazon. Go for it!

 

Thumps, thunks, creaks, jouncing and other issues are universal to autos of every type when their suspension bushings, dampers, springs and other components become worn. Jaguars tend to have more rubber in their suspensions than the average auto, which is part of what makes their compromise of sporty handling and luxurious ride so special. But rubber doesn't last forever. Nor do shocks. The X350 gets a bad rap from second, third and fourth owners who have only experienced the ride with worn bushings and shocks, knocking sway bar links and leaking air suspensions. The newer M-Bs and BMWs I work on don't ride nearly as well as the XJR on which I replaced all four air springs/dampers with OE Bilsteins. But most owners will be completely or mostly happy with a coil conversion like Arnott or Suncore.

Cheers,

Don

 

Yes Don, but we all know why Jaguar eliminated the front air shocks in their later cars.

 

Well Jaguar certainly didn't do away with front air springs to resolve a thump in the rear end. Obviously, something was wrong with your rear suspension and needed to be repaired. You can hardly blame Jaguar for that.

My point is that many folks criticize Jaguar and the X350 because its air suspension components don't last forever. But the parts that wear out in an X350 suspension wear out in other luxury-performance cars too. The fact that they wear out and are expensive to repair can hardly be a reason to criticize the car or the manufacturer. X350s were $75K+ cars when new ($108K+ in today's money), but most of us bought our X350s for a fraction of the original cost. I paid $9,000 for my XJR that had sold for $90,000 in 2004. I could hardly complain when certain maintenance needs arose. And I could hardly say the suspension was a bad design because rubber bushings and air bladders and Teflon air compressor piston rings wore out.

The cars from Jaguar's competitors also have expensive problems when they get to 10+ years of age. So far this year I have replaced the engines in a 2011 BMW 328i (failed electric water pump, internal engine damage) and a 2012 Mercedes E350 (variable valve timing actuator failed, timing chain stretched & skipped, valves collided with pistons). Next week I have to diagnose problems with the air suspension in a Mercedes S-class that rides like a cement truck on a trampoline.The owner really wants to preserve the air suspension. It won't be cheap.

Cheers,

Don

 

My complaint with the X350 suspension wasn't so much the air suspension part, but the bushes in the suspension arms that are so short-lived. The bushes at the bottom of the air spring units start to wear out at around 35k miles which is really quite ridiculous in this day and age. Then there are the bushes in the lower rear wishbone arms that start to wear at a similar mileage. In the early years of these cars, the rear lower wishbones were sold by Jaguar at over £400 each ! My first few months of the first X350 I had required a replacement air compressor at 35k miles. On mine, done at a Jaguar main agent, the cost wasn't too bad amazingly enough, and this second compressor lasted a lot longer than the first one, and actually was still working OK at 115k miles when I part-exed the car for a second X350, (actually an X358 Sovereign). Obviously Wabco improved the compressor, no doubt under pressure from Jaguar as it must have cost them a lot in warranty claims.

The rear lower wishbone issue was quite scandalous because the same part was used in the Lincoln LS and the aftermarket soon cottoned-on to this and made these available at around half the price. So why did Jaguar mark the price up so much ? It is called "gouging" the customer, and Jaguar, of all makers, should know better, bearing in mind their terrible position in the reliability indices.

 

The air suspension components fail regularly, but were built, like the rest of the car, to be the best in the world for five years and then thrown away (Lifetime transmission fluid, anyone?)
The suspension rubber is made of boogers and the lifetime before it degrades can be measured in months instead of years. I've never had a car, seen a car, or heard of a car, that eats through bushings so fast. A garage kept, Arizona car, should not need new bushings every 24-36 months, yet here we are.

The car's value at this point is almost insubstantial and OE Bilsteins are worth more than the car. (Okay, just checked KBB, and used car prices have gone up, it's now worth between $5-7k private party. That was around $3-4 a year and a half ago)

The divetrain seems really stout on these cars, and I haven't had any trouble with it. That's the only reason I'm putting any money into the car at this point. So along those lines, I've decided to put the absolute cheapest coil over setup on the car that I could find. What's the worst that happens? I waste $310.25 on reconditioned, cheap Chinese suspension parts, and a few more hours changing the suspension for the third time, and I'll have to do it a 4th time?

Yes, $310 for four coilovers, shipped for a $100k original car. lol Project car life, here we come!

I'm going out of town for over a month, but when I get back and slap the new suspension on, I'll let you all know what I think.

 

a: your replacement suspension parts suck

or

b: you’re doing something wrong


i’d return the orange chinese coil overs and build s-type struts if you want your car to ride decent and not sit like a 4x4. if you still want them buy them on aliexpress and it saves you big money

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/400106...640x640Q90.jpg

 

Thanks for the snarky remarks.

However, if I had found these at $186 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001061101931.html I'd have given these a try first. Two hundred dollar shocks and springs? Sure
Meanwhile I paid over a hundred bucks more for the rebound-adjustable style. I doubt very much that the adjustment will be worth anything, but it's an experiment. I have a hard time imagining that height-adjustable-coil-overs would require a truck-like stance, especially considering how high the car sits at factory specs. My experience with coilovers is that they are generally designed to give a drop, and you need to add tons of preload to get all the way back up to stock height.

My biggest concern is that the ride might be bone-jarringly stiff, or the damper valving will be so far off as to not do anything. However I also doubt that the manufacturer did ANY of their own R&D, and are simply faithfully copying someone else's specs.

We will see...

The reason I'm happily diving in to this is because I have had some success with cheap Chinese coilovers in another application, though I did have to shell out an additional $70 for a different springrate spring for the rear.

 

my bad i forgot these come with the preload tool. i looked at an xjr with the orange coil overs the other day and it was pretty rough and sitting high.

my s-type v6 strut experience has been very good and very cheap if you ever need a backup plan