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Can anyone please tell me the labor cost for replaceing
all four struts on a 93 legacy AWD sedan?

I am planning on using KYB GR2 with stock springs and am hoping they will lessen the body roll during aggressive cornering. My car leans too much.
With only 59,000 miles the springs and struts should still be good.

I cant say what the cost to replace the struts would be, Ive done it myself 6.5 times and its pretty easy. 60k is about the time when I would start looking at replacement struts even if they still function. Are you still on 14 inch wheels? Going to 16 inch wheels wheels would help quite a bit.

Since you have a Sedan the cost may be slightly higher since the rears are hard to get to.

You should feel a night and day difference in how the car handles with the gr2's.

I also recommend going to either 15" or 16" wheels and lower profile tire

Around the Seattle area, the typical cost for installing springs onto stock shocks runs anywhere between $150-250. Just really depends on where you go. In your case, you're just swapping shocks instead of springs, once everything's apart.

I can tell you one thing, though. Just swapping-out the shocks won't really do a ton. The springs do the majority of the work in any good suspension setup when it comes to hard cornering. I'd suggest going with aftermarket springs as well. . . something with a noticable increase in springrate. Add that to your KYBs and your car will handle MUCH better.

I would also recommend running larger wheels / lower-profile tires at that point, as well. Once the body roll is under control, the tires will start to take the brunt of the "lean" in your turns. Without doing this, you'll notice the car, itself, doesn't lean. . . but the tires will "warble" underneath you. And in my book, that's worse. . . . mainly because the motion is less-predictable.

If you're in western washington I'd be more than happy to give you a hand with this.

Yukonart wrote: Just swapping-out the shocks won't really do a ton. The springs do the majority of the work in any good suspension setup when it comes to hard cornering. I'd suggest going with aftermarket springs as well. . . something with a noticable increase in springrate. Add that to your KYBs and your car will handle MUCH better.

since i am also revising my suspension, i have been doing a lot of reading. Everything I have read leads me to believe this statement is a common misconception. The springs hold the car in place as the struts do the work of keeping the car planted to the road. So the car leans more with the stock springs; this is not such a horrible thing provided the rate that it goes from leaning to upright is not too abrupt. An oversprung car flops.

If you go with a uprated spring, be sure to get one that is the same type as the strut. OEM and GR2's are linear, tien springs and others are progressive. Dont mix them.

Ah, well-said, Scott.

I guess what I was trying to explain (poorly) is that changing one usually isn't enough. Stock springs with performance shocks or sport springs with OEM shocks just aren't usually an option in my book.

thanks yukon. When you've got an sti, you dont need to worry about piddly little things like suspension setups

But yea, i would want more dampening than more spring. IE mercedes sport models have the same springs, just 30% stiffer struts. Also, consider that over the next 60k of the life of the car, the struts are gonna get softer, while the springs stay the same. So while initially it is only a minor difference, its gonna get worse.

While I know that's a correct statement, it has to be said that springs can (and WILL) wear out. Had this happen on one of my older cars. However, the shocks will go about twice as fast.

I can tell you from my personal experience that if you have a little bit of know-how, the right tools, and someone to give you a hand, do it yourself. Get a Haynes or a Chiltons, talk to a mechanic (I'm not shy about going right up to mechanics in the garage and asking them questions (usally they tend to respect the informed, dedicated do-it-yourselfer) and save yourself a TON of money.
Typically, you're just not gonna get the same deal from a shop on the suspension equipment that you can buy from online distributors.
Before I finally decided to do it myself, complete strut and spring replacement was daunting, financially. to say the least.
Expect a minimum of $1200.00-1500.00 to do the work. That would be really, really cheap. I had four different shops quote me estimates to anywhere from $1400.00-1900.00 to replace my stock OEM struts and springs with KYB GR2's (when they could even order them) stock replacement springs and new top mounts. This was after I specifically shopped around for decent shops if that tells you anything...
Long story short: buy the parts online and do it yourself. It's not that difficult and in the long run you'll gain valuable info about how to replace/repair one of the primary systems on your car.
Just my 2 cents.

Bob

That's a lot. My mechanic would get under $900 for that job. Labor shouldn't be too much.

Steve

Under 900.00 to replace struts, springs AND topmounts?! Holy moly... I need to know where your mechanic is -it might be worth the drive!
Also, if you happen to be on good terms with the guy, I would think he would be more willing to cut you a break here and there (I would).
In any event, it's not a bad idea to do certain jobs yourself assuming you have the tools and a general knowledge of what's involved in the process.

Bob

Yeah he runs about 400/axle with GR2s (the only thing he uses anyway). He's an old friend of the family. I'm not sure what the top mounts would run, but I remember replacing them from the dealer for $80/ea and the labor wasn't any more. It's not a hard job with a good spring compressor (I wouldn't use a cheap one). I haven't done the Subaru as I've always had the good fortune of losing my struts in the dead of winter, but I've done it on other cars.

I'm about 15 miles north of Boston.

Steve

I bought the GR-2s from tire Rack. I think the labor for all 4 plus a bunch of other stuff was ~$300.

If you go with a uprated spring, be sure to get one that is the same type as the strut. OEM and GR2's are linear, tien springs and others are progressive. Dont mix them.

scottzg, I just came across your quote here. I'm planning to upgrade my suspension soon. I have GR-2s on the front and stock in the back but planning to install GR-2s in the back too.

From your statement I take it that I need linear springs, right? Is Whiteline, HRs, Eibachs all linear? How can I tell the difference? From the sticky the Whitelines and Eibachs front springs have a single spring rating while the rears look like they are progressive in construction. Am I right or am I not understanding the figures? I guess I'm asking if I can use either Whitelines or Eibachs with the GR-2s.

May I have your comment or anyone else's, please?

Ummm, is this post considered hijacking a thread? I don't mean to do that. But if that is what I'm doing, somebody please tell me so the next time I can start a new thread. Thanks.

My mechanic said he would have charged me $125 for replacing the two front struts with GR-2s. But he didn't because he wanted to help me out and since then I did some work for him without charging him.

The best way to find out is to look at the spring rates themselves; if it says "spring rate- #" it's a linear spring, and if it says spring rate- #-#" that means the spring rate varies between those numbers depending on compression; its a progressive spring. My rule of thumb is to get linear-linear or progressive-progressive, if you go linear, get a spring with the same uprating as the shock (gr2 is 15% stiffer than stock, 132lb springs are stock, so look for 132lbx1.15=~151lb springs)

With progressive springs, i would get the shocks they're designed to work with; even if the range is the same, the increase in rate may not be.

BAC recently wrote a FANTASTIC piece on suspension tuning that I'd highly reccomend looking in to.

So if Whiteline front springs are rated at 176 and Eibachs are at 171, is that too stiff or would they be considered a reasonable match?

Also, Whiteline's rear springs are 131 - 218 and Eibach's are are 91 - 188. Are the GR-2s rear struts progressive or linear?

Is there a reason why Whiteline and Eibach would have linear front springs and progressive rear springs made for the same car?

Oh, and I couldn't find BAC's writeup on suspension tuning or is it staring me in the face and I just don't see it?

It's right here:
http://www.bbs.legacycentral.org/viewto ... sc&start=0

I guess its only obvious if you lurk as obsessively as i do.

It wouldn't surprise me if the rear is progressive, although i dont know why. Never really looked into it.

as for the stiffness of the springs, it would be like 12% or so more spring per shock, which can be better than stock ratio or worse depending on the situation- read bac's post.

Thanks for directing me to BAC's post, Scott! Wow! I thoroughly enjoyed it! I remember reading a book on race car suspension design and geometry discussing some of the things BAC wrote about. I read the portion on center of gravity and roll center over and over again for several days and still couldn't understand it. With BAC's simple explanation, I understand it a whole lot better.

Interestingly, that exact same portion of the book was part of the SAT test. I stared at it in disbelief. I didn't know what the correct answer was but I knew that three of the four suggested answers were wrong so I marked the one remaining that I couldn't explain as being correct. I just knew the other three were wrong. It turns out my score on whatever aptitude that covers was rated in the 99.9 percentile group.

But that kind of intelligence is really no intelligence at all because I couldn't explain it nor put it into practical application. With BAC's post, I can now do something practical about the knowledge.

mp, I replaced two of my front struts with the GR-2s (and also kept the stock springs). (Didn't have money for the back struts at the time) So, while I didn't get the full benefit of having GR-2s on all four corners, just the front two made a noticeable difference for me when on interstate exchanges. On one particular sweeping turn, I could barely reach 50 mph because it felt like I could no longer "feel" the road, like I was on the verge of losing control of the car. After the GR-2s were installed, I could take that same curve at 65 mph with confidence and I know I could take it easily past 70 mph if I had to .