Changing Prado Front Suspension only?
Submitted: Thursday, Apr 09, 2009 at 12:57
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tdv
Hi
Odd question I guess. My 120 series prado has now done 70,000km carting around a camper, not to mention roof rack, and a winch and AGM battery up front. The
suspension has sagged up front but the rear is OK and has had polyairs fitted since new.
I rang around for some prices to upgrade my
suspension and found that Polyairs on this model cannot be used with lifted
suspension and that spacers are not available meaning a $400 investment basically gets thrown in the bin!
As the ride height and performance of the rear
suspension is generally good is it feasible to just change the front and maybe the rear shocks?
Total quote for all new
suspension with new polyairs comes in at around $2250 for TJM XGS which is a lot more than I wanted to spend.
Cheers
Tez
Reply By: Member - mike H (WA) - Thursday, Apr 09, 2009 at 13:26
Thursday, Apr 09, 2009 at 13:26
Hi Tez,
There is no problem with increasing the front ride height or spring rate on its own provided that the resulting increase is limited to avoid any castor change issues. You will need to have a wheel alignment carried out (good idea to have this done on a regular basis anyway)
With the additional weight that you have on the front of the vehicle you should be looking at an increase in spring rate (this is what takes the weight) and this, done correctly, will correct your ride height issues due to the extra weight and spring degradation caused by that extra weight.
Unhappily there are a lot of so called specialists who do not understand that spring rate changes and "free to installed" spring height changes are two different things and are used to achieve different results.
BTW I used to be a Toyota Service Manager and taught all this stuff for more years than I care to remember.
Cheers
Mike
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Reply By: RobAck - Thursday, Apr 09, 2009 at 18:27
Thursday, Apr 09, 2009 at 18:27
Not sure where you are getting advice on but we have TJM XGS springs and shocks and the fit our extra raised springs and have since new. But there may be a that fits our raised springs you will need to
check. Given that are only spring helpers then it all depends on the rear spring height you select to replace the current one's. You can get normal heavy duty that are match for the Toyota spring heights so your poly air investment should be fine still
I would never recommend only upgrading the front or rear separately as this gives you different rates for shocks and springs which does not make for an even ride
Apart from that I recommend the XGS Gold shocks for the front over the standard XGS and go with the TJM
suspension it is definitely worth the money. We get to see on average around 20 Prado per month through training and tours and so it is easy to compare
suspension set-ups and whilst
suspension is very much a personal thing I am quite happy with the TJM system
Regards
RobA
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