SNYPRUSMC

I want to get more educated before I make a purchase. I know there's Koni, Bilstein, Kw...etc. I have a 2008 550. Primarily want coilovers for ride height control. What are the pro's/con's of what you guys are running? Who has the best customer service?

Thanks in advance.

quanger

KW v3 is the way to go.
Pro: Ride quality over stock.
Con: Pricey (you get what you pay for) @ about $2500 a set

SNYPRUSMC

Thanks for the feedback. How much diffrent are the v3's from the v2's?

tundra

If you go with KW I'd highly recommend the V3 so you can tune the compression (bump) force. The V2's are rebound adjustable only where the V3 have both rebound and bump adjustment capability.


I have an 07 550i and recently installed KW V3's. While I'm still fine tuning them I can say they need relatively high bump force in order to prevent bouncing all over the road. KW recommends setting the bump at 5 clicks from full stiff F+R for the street. With my particular roads that setting was unbearable and I felt like I was driving on 4 pogo sticks. I ended up at 2 clicks from full stiff in the front and 3 in the rear and it'd say it's in the acceptable range.... though at the edge of it.

SNYPRUSMC

I really appreciate that feedback... We're not far from each other. I'm in Raleigh, so possibly the same settings will apply. Given what you know now, would you still stick with KW, or would you have went a different direction?

tundra

Ah yes indeed I just noticed you're relatively near by, I'd wager a guess that the roads are similar at least. NCDOT seems pretty consistently bad throughout the state haha

Good question, honestly I'm still undecided on whether I like them at this point. I haven't tried another sus on this car other than the M-sport so am limited on what I can comment on. I've had several different suspension setups on my wrx but that car is much lighter and not as severe as our heavy e60's. It's taken a considerable amount of time to get the right bump and rebound settings and I still feel there's too big of a tradeoff between handling and ride quality. The issue I've been fighting is with the rebound setting. Add too little damping and the car is not controlled over heaves in the road and other imperfections. If I set the rebound force on the higher end of the range the bounciness is subdued somewhat, but at the cost of pretty harsh impact performance and the wheels will sometimes skip over bad parts of the road in high G turns. I'm sure on the track these would be pretty decent, but it's really a balancing act on the street.

Oh one more thing, I have the M-sport package w/ 19" wheels and needed a 3mm spacer in the front so the tires would not rub on the dampers. You'll also need to make sure the wheel arch to hub center is not more than 13-1/4" or the spring perches will slam into the tire as well. But at this ride height the tires are visually almost equal with the bottom of the fender, and it's subsequently the same exact ride height that my M-sport suspension was in the front as well. Bottom line it still looks good but you're not really able to go lower with the M-sport wheels.

SNYPRUSMC

I see. I too have the sport package with the stock staggered 19's. However, I'm in the process of getting custom wheels/offsets for a more flush and aggressive look. Once on the car, I want to lower for better overal fitment. Now I'm wondering if clearance will be an issue??

tundra

With the right offset wheels and ride height it should not be an issue. You'll definitely need to take it into consideration when you get the new wheels though. I believe the front M-sport wheels are +18 offset and as you know they are pretty close to the fender well. I'm at essentially +21 with the spacers and have a very small amount of fender clearance at my current ride height. Just more items to think about is all, but you should not have a problem if you spec it correctly.

SNYPRUSMC

I'm looking at going with 19x10 et25 in front, 19x11 et25 in rear.

tundra

It's hard to say for sure, but the front seems like it'll be pretty tight on 10" wheels with the KW setup. On the M-sport suspension the spring perch is actually above the tire so it definitely wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately not so with the KW V3 setup, where the spring perch is equal with the tire lip at a very wide range of suspension heights.


You might have to go to drastic measures such as having to set aggressive negative camber and/or stretching more narrow tires on the front wheels. But again I cannot say for sure since I'm going on limited experience with that particular wheel size.