to give a rundown on things, i bought a full complete stock take-off setup from a guy i knew with an 05 mr. the entire setup had just about 35k miles on it with no signs of wear or unusual abuse. granted i knew he didnt baby his car i could see the struts were in good working shape and they performed that way just fine for the previous ohh 2-3k miles. now these 2-3k miles i've put on them were with the tein s-tech mr specific springs rated at 1.8"f and 0.8"r drop. all of the bump stops were trimmed according to the directions yada yada. on the way back from the shootout last weekend i started noticing a clunk when i'd hit bumps on the freeway and noticed just this week once i had it at the shop that there was a nice coating of black greasy oil around the strut shaft at the top of the strut cartridge and on the bottom of the bump stop. this clearly was indicating why i was hearing such a horrible clunk/thud when hit hard bumps. the strut is magically blown. no other leaks than from directly around the seal and the other three are still in great shape. my only guess is that these strut simply cannot handle such a drop. i never did anything other than the typical sprited off ramp exit and country back road. no track events and i'm on some ****ty siped barum all seasons that came on the car when i bought it even. my main goal with this post is to see if others are having this kind of problem and to see how much if at all it will matter if i run these tein mr springs on my stock kybs. i'll be looking into possibly a cheap single replacement for my blown bilstein and these will have stock springs back on and be used as the junk winter suspension setup.

 

no .. that's because you are not the only one who got blown Bilstien out of the S-tech .. there are many others !
the S-Tech is one of the most possibly worst spring for the MR and none MR ..
should have Researched before you bought 150$ springs that costed you $1k or so Shocks ! ...

the Best springs for the MR is the Swift MR spec and the WORKs MR spec.

 

Everyone knows S-Techs are garbage and will blow your shocks. I've also never heard of any MR-specific Tein springs either.

 

That's depressing and definetely not the wisest choice in spring purchase. Sorry to hear that.

 

Tein has S-tech springs for the CT9A MR, PN SKR94-AUB00 213/291 lbs F/R. I believe that Bilstein might be able to repair/revalve the struts.

 

well this is depressing. i was very happy with the setup until now. i've known a couple guys running the teins on the standard kybs with no problems. i had chosen to go with the bilsteins cuz i got a great deal and figured despite them being a softer strut that they would be better valved and paired with a little more agressive spring it'd be a good all around basic setup. that and so i could keep my entire stock setup to change out for winter.

well now that i've gotten this out of the way i do have two or more or less one question i haven't seemed to be able to find a clear answer on:
it would make sense to me that the springs are different between the bilstein and kyb. would it be worth it or adviseable to try mixing and matching between the two or should i just put the stock springs that came with the bilsteins back where they belong? and also in that same sort of idea, what if i were to try out my tein springs for the bilsteins on my kybs?

 

It sounds most definitely a blown strut. I suggest getting the Bilstein struts rebuilt. Go to the bilstein website to get instructions on where/how to get the work done. I believe the cost is 85 per strut plus shipping. Hope this helps

 

Your friends aren't using S-Techs with no problem. They just don't know any better, and if their shocks aren't blown yet, they WILL be in a matter of time. Plus, the springs are not "more aggressive." They are strictly for ricers who only want to lower their car and do not care that the springs degrade performance and damage the stock shocks.

The answer to your question is to just get some proper springs if you only want to run springs, then it doesn't matter which shocks you use between the KYBs and Bilsteins. The only mistake here was using the worst possible springs on the market.

 

The S-techs suck. They blew my front struts also. Sorry for your luck.

 

I would advise you not the mix/match the springs between your stock suspension and the MR Bilstein suspension. If you plan on keeping your MR Bilstein suspension, I would do the following:

1. Re-build the MR Bilstein suspension you already have and pair them up w/ a good set of springs (eg. Swift MR Specific, Work Springs, GT Worx)

2. Donate the Tein S-Tech springs to whomever picks up scrap metal in your area

3. Keep the stock suspension setup handy for emergency use

I am currently running Swift MR specific springs w/ my MR Bilsteins and have had no problem with them even in the crappy roads around here in the Chicagoland area. Hope this helps.

 

i too am having same prob..noise up front,from car i just purchased,not sure if its from blown clutch or bilsteins,i guess after new clutch install i will have my answer
gl with dealing with bilstein

 

great thread!... same as SPOOLD found MR bilstein for a good price.... but i also have a problem where the top part of the strut rod( the part with threads) is completly stripped on one of the front ones... i called Bilstein and they said they cant fix that and also they can't order it either cuz MR bilstein were only manufactured in GERMANY ONLY. so in my case what could i do? any suggestions?

 

Wait for Bilstein HDs to come back in stock (hopefully December) and buy a pair of fronts.

- Andrew

 

Easiest option is call your local Mitsu dealer & pay the +/- $550 for one strut...not very cost effective. Have you tried taking a tap & die to the threads? Some guy on this forum had a post on where he sent in his strut to bilstein with the threaded part broken off! He said they had it for like 8 months with no resolution??? ..don't know what kind of company would hold on to a strut for that long with no resolution available to the customer.. You probably won't find a single strut for sale for the side you need. But for the cost of a new one, you could probably pick up another used set of four on here for less money. GL

Edit: to echo what Andrew said, the Bilstein HD's is another option.

 

Say I buy a new strut from Mitsubishi...havin 3 struts with 25k miles And one brand new would cause any problems or put excess stress on the older ones... Second choice say I'm down to buy Bilstein HD in December.. What kind of $ we talking here..:/