Hi all, I have a 1.8 09 soft-top NC2 with 80k miles that has recently passed it’s MOT, it came back with 2 advisories however that the rear nearside and front offside shock absorbers had a light misting of oil, I have given them a quick look and taken a few pictures.
Front Nearside - Dry
Front Offside - slight film of oil and very black/dirty on the side facing inwards to the car
Rear Nearside - very slight film of oil
Rear Offside - Dry
- Bounce test on all 4 corners seems to be fine, moves a little but very quickly settles
- Seems to drive as normal, no lurching or bouncing that i can tell over bumps and when stopping
The car currently has the 35mm lowered eibach pro springs on it which were fitted late last year.
Would the shocks be of concern? i have heard that a light film of oil is normal on shocks but any runs or drips aren’t, the only thing I’m unsure following this is that i would have thought all of the shocks would have a film of oil, not just 2.
If this turns out to be something that needs to be replaced im a bit unsure what option to go for, im conscious to keep costs down as i had to spend around £2500 on a rebuild alongside a few other bits last year so any opinions regarding this would be welcomed.
Thanks in advance all.
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Clean them and see if it returns. A certain chain was well known for spraying oil on shocks and telling customers they needed new ones! I hope they have stopped this fraud.
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At 80k they’re past their best and no shock should have oil on it, that’s a sign of leaking. I’m surprised you only got an advisory.
Personally I’d change all shock absorbers. If you can afford it id change the springs as well.
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I agree. Change them all👍🏻
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RichardN is right…still happens I’d wager but that oil looks to old and seasoned to my eyes…probably in this case genuine. They will be well past their sell by date anyhow ( Bit like me).
I suspect (if my 2 x 5s are anything to go by recently) new coils & shocks will totally transform the car.
Not too keen on how the droplinks look either…common pesky fail. Pretty cheap to fix them really.
Plus a laser session when it’s done of course.
Would changing drop links like for like throw off the alignment? I had a fail and an advisory last MOT and did all 4 . . . . Yep, I’ve just talked myself into this . . I had the 30mm lowering springs and geometry set-up done around 2500 miles ago so I’ll be booking in again at WIM as the coils will have settled since then. Quite a nice 130 mile round trip too.
(There again, with the cost of fuel . . . )
Me? Indecisive??? 
No.
Won’t affect the alignment…just anti roly poly stuff innit loike?
Why change the springs ? They are probably six months old, if that, and are what the op chose to do with their car.
If the owner has personally bought them and knows when they have been fitted fair enough but if they came with the car I’d change them.
Yeah, thought so.
Could probably do with an alignment check anyway as the springs will have settled but I’ll go somewhere more local. There’s a tyre supplier with a racing enthusiast side and a Hunter machine not too far from me. They’ll do standard setup or you can supply your own; I’ve got the WIM fast road numbers.
I’m overdue some work on the undercarriage, any chance of a heads up of those WIM numbers ?
The numbers I’ve got are specified for Mk3 and 3.5 so probably not right for yours if it’s a 3.75.
What’s the situation with the numbers anyway. I don’t think Tony made any secret of them so are they free to post?
No problem, I’m not that close to a WIM and was just hoping for some ballpark numbers to compare and contrast with a local "specialists’ " offerings/suggestions.
Sorry should have specified, i bought the springs second hand last year and they were fitted when it went in for the rebuild. The guy that bought the springs in the first place had them on his car for around 8k miles and they have probably done 500 miles on mine so far and they were very good condition when i put them on. I was considering options including keeping the springs and replacing shocks but with the price of decent shocks being £80-100 each corner not including labour and ideally needing to replace all 4 im starting to consider coilovers more on the budget end along the lines of Tein.
IMHO if money is an issue you will get much better quality components if you go with non adjustable dampers from the likes of Bilstein and Koni rather than buying cheap chinesuem stuff.
So my suggestion is to go with the OEM NC2 sport springs and dampers (which are the Bilstein B6)
You will also need to budget for a full alignment.
here are my numbers from WIM from back in 2016 if it helps, mine is a 3.75, the printout listed 3 / 3.5 Fast Road settings because they hadn’t updated the description.
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That is identical to what Joe put on my NC1 2L Sport last year.
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Cheers for those.