Weird suspension issue!!!?????

So, I have vmaxxes. Once the temperature went above -40 and the ice that was packed in my coilovers melted and were no longer rock hard, i noticed my suspension was completely blown.
So bouncy i wake up with a stiff neck every morning.

Okay, so I was driving down the roads which are super horrible and wavy. And i went over a bump i could feel my rear suspenion becoming uncompressed and going up, but then it didnt come back down.
I have no idea how, but at this point my rear was way up in the air, and i was being pushed up against the steering wheel at this point.
I was shocked and couldnt understand how this was happening, looked out my window(it was snowing and icy so nobody was around) and noticed that in fact my rear of the car was sticking up and i had half a foot of wheel gap.
I was super shocked, then a littler later hit a huge ice divit car completely bottomed out made the usual horrible crashing sounds and then my car was back to its normal super bouncy self.
How the hell did this happen!???
i dont understand how the suspension wasent able to go back down.
The rear of the car was sticking its ass up for like 5-6 minutes and going over the wavy roads the rear felt rock hard and felt like it had 0 suspension travel but with half a foot of wheel gap!
I am so confused??
Can somebody shed some light on this situation, please!
(im gonna pull the car into the heated garage and check it out tommorow)

and a picture of the car

and a paint picture of what it looked like for those 5-6 distressing minutes:

Exaggeration at its finest.

corey wrote:

Exaggeration at its finest.

pffft!
you try driving down the street and having your car turn into a lowrider.
I will inspect my car tommorow and come back with carnage pics!
well maybe not, there may be no evidence.
But if it happens once it will happen again, and then i will pull over and take pics!

as i have already told you this is just like how my mom refuses to believe my guinea pig is pregnant, but when there is 6 guinea pigs where there used to be 2, she will have to admit she was wrong.

But wasn't the main "reason" everyone buys coilovers is so they adjust their ride height for winter? Atleast that "reason" always seems to come up.


coils+winter=mess.

This is just another example.


Layne,
your shocks could be blown. So when you hit the large bump, the rear spring fully extended, and since the shock may have reached the top of its travel(but could not compress) it may have gotten stuck/bent in its casing. Thats just one explanation. It would make more sense if I could use my hands to describe it, and since I am terrible at Paint, I wont even try to draw it out.

Marshal wrote:

But wasn't the main "reason" everyone buys coilovers is so they adjust their ride height for winter? Atleast that "reason" always seems to come up.


coils+winter=mess.

This is just another example.


Layne,
your shocks could be blown. So when you hit the large bump, the rear spring fully extended, and since the shock may have reached the top of its travel(but could not compress) it may have gotten stuck/bent in its casing. Thats just one explanation. It would make more sense if I could use my hands to describe it, and since I am terrible at Paint, I wont even try to draw it out.

i would agree. The winter can't be good for coils, they're stiff as it is, then when they freeze and don't move and your bouncing all over the road good things cannot happen. They might be fucked

Marshal wrote:

But wasn't the main "reason" everyone buys coilovers is so they adjust their ride height for winter? Atleast that "reason" always seems to come up.
.

not targetting you marshal.

but whoeveer buys coilovers thinking they can just raise them and run them in winter is stupid.

alot of coils are not even rated to be in -20 weather because the seals crack then they blow. there are great ones that will do ok, but even then why would you want stiff springs on slippery surface? that is a recipe for disaster.

in my opinion, people buy coils to get the ride hieght they want dialed in with trackcar-like performance...want a few mm lower? takes half hour. bought a new exhaust and need it raised? same thing.

240sxy wrote:

Marshal wrote:

But wasn't the main "reason" everyone buys coilovers is so they adjust their ride height for winter? Atleast that "reason" always seems to come up.
.

but whoeveer buys coilovers thinking they can just raise them and run them in winter is stupid.

i bought coilovers thinking i could keep them lowered and run them in the winter.
haha uh oh.
but for the record everyone does it

There is a difference between running them in the winter when it only goes down to -10 compared to here when it can dip to -40.

The valving is tighter on aftermarket coilovers and what happens when it get really cold is that the oil gets thick and it takes more effort to make it pass through the valves. When it oil can't pass through the valves fast enough pressure is built up and the oil has to escape to somewhere. Usually the easiest exit is to bypass the seals which are already fragile from being rock hard and frozen. When this happens the seals usually break or dislodge from their seats and the oil escapes causing the failure of the strut.

When selling coilovers of ANY brand I always tell my customers that they should be removed before winter. It doesn't matter if they are entry level Ksports or Variant 3 KW's. It never fails though some guys leave them in and come back to me complaining that their coilovers have blown.

Layne the pictures you posted could be from the States where it rarely drops below -10 and the coilover isn't exposed to the extreme conditions that we see here.

well i suppose it is good to know that my coilovers are now completely fucked haha.

air susp FTW

Winter fucks everything up, leave it at that.

i am going to sell this piece of shit audi
buy a range rover and be done with it

i wish your dad was more understanding

corey wrote:

i wish your dad was more understanding

haha first thing he does when he gets out of his truck is claims that i dont know how to drive and when the hell am i going to sell "this peice of shit!"

Im getting a survival kit ready for tommorow.
There is no way i am getting stuck again!!!
well at least not so bad that i have to phone him to come pull me out