Stock suspension life expectancy
 

Hi All,

2010 Z with 56k miles on it now. I'm wondering how many miles you guys are getting out of your stock suspension before noticing a performance degradation. My car has been through NYC cracked and potholed roads, and I've yet to notice a difference from when I first got it. No slop or sag.

I'm not looking to change out to coilovers unless I actually need to replace the stock suspension.


Thanks

Suspension is a wear item, but should last the general 100k mile "lifetime", IMO. Note that my opinion is based on average driving conditions.

Check the suspension for fluid leaks during your routine maintenance to stay on top of things and you should be good.

I know of one Nismo driver in the North Jersey area that had his shock absorber fail; not sure of the mileage but it was under a 100k but over 50k.

the general timeline i've heard was 75k.

i changed mine out at 70kish.

Keep an eye on the shaft seal area for weepage. That is a sign that a seal is going bad. Also with that. If there is weepage. The gas is gone inside the shock/coilover as the seal is worn and the gas has escaped. If the seal is not weeping. You have to remove the shock from the car and push/pull it through is range of travel checking for any easy/hard spots. A shock will normally wear the cylinder in one small area in it's travel stroke. Anything out of that area will feel different.

100K miles of daily driving here with regular short bursts of hard driving. No signs of weeping or damage. Travel range was last checked around 85K miles with no concerns. When I finally get it out on the track in the next few months, I expect a quick failure.

If you split the parts into individual categories, you get a better depiction on what goes bad first.

Springs - generally are a lifetime item that should not go bad unless they bind or go through horribly heat cycles. Lifetime for cars is generally considered 10 years and or 200k miles.

Dampers- this is a toss up. Under normal conditions they typical wear out somewhere between 60-120k miles. Bottoming out your damper or it getting clogged will destroy the life cycle.

Bushings - A huge proponent to suspension failure is bushing and bearing failures. Once these go, the above mentioned items will take on more abuse and wear faster. These can start to show signs of failure as early as 20k miles and can go bad with extreme abuse very fast (track days and long trips over poor roads). Bad bushings and bearings can cause higher torsional loads on the strut and mess up the damper even faster by binding and bending the main rod and seals.

Tire/wheel balance - often not considering a direct suspension importance, but an out of balance wheel or damaged tires will transmit more vibrations to the suspension and cause quicker wear on above items. First destroying the bushing/bearings which in turns messes up your alignment and then its a snowball effect from there. This is why its important to always check your tire pressure and routinely check that the wheel is in balance even if you don't rotate or change tires. Low tire pressures overnight will cause harsher flat spots that may go unnoticed to your arse, but your suspension will definitely feel it.